Should I use boot.dev to get better at coding if I just vibe code everything anyways

Posted by Snoo_72544@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 11 comments

hey guys, so for context i'm 16 atm in high school and programming was always something I found fun

really it was the fact you could build stuff, and the problem solving

now i'm building SaaS and stuff online w/ cursor, claudecode, and bolt with the broken js fundamentals I had learned before this ai stuff

is it still worth it to drop a couple hours a day into boot.dev to learn all this shit

ik ik i sound like an AI fiend, but in reality and want to be able to solve the problems I get in my SaaS without AI because that feeling of debugging just gives me a rollercoaster of emotions and I kind of love it

if there is a practice purpose, y'all just lmk

it makes me sad and kind of bored to have the AI just solve everything, idrc if it's better than me or not atp lol it's better than everyone

tldr: is it worth spending time and money learning cs fundamentals simply for the rush of being able to solve errors in code without AI, not much practical purpose

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ValentineBlacker@reddit

If you're sad and bored of course you should stop doing it and learn stuff for yourself! No hobby should make you sad and bored. It's great that you like debugging, you'll go really far with that.

Snoo_72544@reddit (OP)

yeah lol, this post is kinda dumb, i'm like tryna convince myself for some reason

i'll just go do whatever I want LMAO

AgileBox7744@reddit

You don't need to justify wanting to learn programming and everything you do doesn't need to have a purpose. Everyone in this sub is going to tell you to learn to program.

Careful-State-854@reddit

Learn how to instruct AI to build you the product so you can make money, and learn coding as a hobby

SwigOfRavioli349@reddit

You should not vibe code at all if you want to become a proficient programmer.

Get a note book, and write out what you’re learning, and then code more by yourself.

dinidusam@reddit

100%. Dw about AI. You have plenty of time to get familar with it, and its easy to work with. Dw about saving time either with AI. Ur a high schooler. What ur doing makes you more ahead than 90% of CS majors I know. Just do what you love and spend all the time you want getging better at problem solving.

It will pay dividends.

Durwur@reddit

You mention that working without AI gives you a "rollercoaster of emotions" (in a positive way)
You mention that you find it annoying that AI does things for you
AIs are fundamentally limited context-wise and thus there will always be a certain point in a project where the AI cannot fully take in the code / docs and will make wrong assumptions (not to mention hallucination, and that it fundamentally just guesses the next token)

There are more reasons, but these three are already amazing reasons to start learning (more of) the fundamentals: data structures, control flow, algorithms, etc.! Learn it the hard way, by yourself, you'll gain expertise, problem-solving skills, you'll become better at organising thoughts, it's awesome.

I will disclose my bias as I'm both ethically and practically against using AI for producing code, but doing (things related to) CS for roughly a decade now I can tell you that learning shit the hard way is way more fulfilling than using a tool while not understanding what's fundamentally going on.

If you don't know what good code looks like, how are you going to direct your tooling to make it happen?