Are there any videos of people programming with AI *the right way*?
Posted by d-czar@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 16 comments
Consensus is emerging that AI is terrible substitute for learning to program / great as a tutor. AND that it’s a great tool for making experienced programmers more efficient and productive. Good for planning, building small pieces, testing, etc. But all the online videos are just vibe coding slop stunts, which is so 2 months ago. Anyone making good videos about using AI as a tool to code more smarterly?
GlobalWatts@reddit
Treat chat AI like it's a fancier search engine; let it find and summarize information for you to help you understand, but make sure you do understand the original information. Don't use it to learn anything on its own.
Treat coding AI like a fancier combination of boilerplate template generators and static code analysis; as a second set of eyes that can help bring certain things to your attention. You should try this function, this block of code is suboptimal, don't forget to consider scenario Y. Here's some code to do X, but you need to understand it and tailor it to your needs. Verify everything it tells you. Don't treat it as a mentor or an infallible source of truth, that's both a) just factually not true, and b) verges on weird anthropomorphizing of computer software that's not healthy for your psyche.
You don't need a video to understand this, and this advice is not limited to just coding.
d-czar@reddit (OP)
Thank you, but the point of the original question was that it’s always valuable to see a worked example or several examples to go along with the general principles of the kind you talk about
GlobalWatts@reddit
You can't learn coding from watching people code.
d-czar@reddit (OP)
I know how to code. What I’m trying to improve at is using AI as a coding tool most effectively. Surely you don’t disagree That videos can be a helpful learning tool
GlobalWatts@reddit
Using coding tools like IDEs and AIs is indeed part of coding.
I don't disagree that videos are a useful learning tool. I disagree that watching videos of people using tools are not useful for gaining insight into why or when they use those tools. These are critical thinking skills. you improve them by better understanding the subject matter, coupled with hands-on experience.
Robot_Apocalypse@reddit
You need to build a context engineering framework for the AI coder.
Basically, define the types of development activities that your coder will be doing for you. i.e. requirements gathering, research, architecture design, development, testing, documenting etc.
for each of those define reference standards, patterns, templates, best-practices etc.
Define how knowledge is stored and maintained. Project knowledge, technical and user documentation, task specific knowledge.
Then stick it all together into an overarching framework and tell your AI how to use it.
Some tips:
I am building out a detailed Context Engineering Framework for coding with Claude Code. I'll be done in a few weeks. Hit me up and I'll share it with you and potentially offer some coaching in exchange for some feedback.
d-czar@reddit (OP)
Happy to check it out. To clarify, my question is less about directing AI agents, and more about pair programming with AI, or at least, working with it to be a more effective coder. That’s a different animal than being a conductor orchestrating AI agents.
The other thing I believe is lacking are working video examples of the stuff you describe. There are a lot of written guides and best practices but it’ll be useful to people to actually follow a real example, with all the messiness and false starts and interaction that comes with AI-assisted programming.
Robot_Apocalypse@reddit
I see. I think the difference is i don't agree with your implication that you can't use Agentic Coding to build full production platforms, if you know what you're doing.
The issue is most people don't know how to do it so they end up with terrible results.
If you didn't know how to play the piano, then you can't expect to sit down and play a concerto. If however you have invested time to build capability, then you can expect much different results.
Anyway, it not what you asked for so, all good.
d-czar@reddit (OP)
FWIW, I have a CS degree, know how to program, not at a professional level but at a solid intermediate level. I’ve been using Cursor for 7-8 months, and have learned a ton both about programming and patterns, AND about how NOT to do things. But I’ve slowly, and through much trial and error and wasted time, figured out some useful processes for using Cursor in a productive and efficient way. In short: have it help you get a very clear idea of what you want to do, then build that in small Pieces and make sure you understand exactly what each piece is doing, as though you wrote it yourself. Not saying that’s the best way, just the way I do it.
pandafriend42@reddit
The problem with that approach is that you might end up with a lot of holes in comparison to a structured approach.
In addition to that it's not nessecarily faster to build pieces through prompts.
A good module, function or method has not many lines of code and it turned out to be more work to build it through prompts rather than just write it.
If you got the skill that is. If you haven't got the skill then you don't know wether the AI code is actually good and then you might pick up bad practices.
Personally I think that you should start doing something without AI and after you finished ask AI about it and cross reference wether it followed bad practices in the advice. I also experimented a lot with AI assistance, but that's what I ended up with.
In hindsight I should have used less, but I don't regret doing it, because I got to know what AI is bad at and where not to use it.
Throwaway scripts or simple things meant for solving a comparatively simple problem without the intent to actually learn are probably the best use cases. For example when your code is a wrapper for a library, so you can run functions of it through console commands.
For productive work using it as advanced code completion can also be fine, but if the problems are more advanced it ends up interrupting your thought process and might even throw you off the track.
Of course all of that refers only to the coding portion of generative AI.
gob_magic@reddit
Mostly true. There are very few out there who are genuinely sharing the right process and not parroting best practices or common sense tips.
The process you outlined is right. I used to disable my copilot when learning something new. Then turn it back on when working on a project and keep checking best practices and official documentation.
Some things honestly don’t have best practices and just agreed upon patterns. Best to make and release projects to know their limitations. LLMs are great at documentation, summarizing and starter templates to reduce initial workload. As code base gets bigger, the LLMs must laser focus.
If left unchecked or completely “vibe coded” to “build me a cms” then it can get near impossible to debug.
d-czar@reddit (OP)
Agreed. Curious though, why just “mostly true”?
Aromatic-Low-4578@reddit
There are plenty of ways to effectively use AI, but they are far more likely to be treated as a crutch by someone trying to learn programming. I use AI quite a bit, but knowing when and how to use it effectively is nearly impossible without a solid foundation.
d-czar@reddit (OP)
Once again, totally agree. But I do believe that using it effectively is and will be a part of the solid foundation going forward. That is, best practices for how to use it — both as a relative beginner and as a regular user — ought to be being taught and codified now. Said another way, I think we’re far enough into this that it can be more than just people individually stumbling through and learning by trial and error; AI-assisted programming / best AI coding practices is ready to be its own formal sub-skill, but seems like the teachers of it haven’t appeared yet. Hence the OP question.
Aromatic-Low-4578@reddit
I mean, frankly, I think the people effectively using AI for coding generally aren't making youtube videos.
d-czar@reddit (OP)
Sounds like a rare opening in the YouTubing market then! I think a lot of people would watch!