Learning habits and the use of AI
Posted by Goldenskyofficial@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 24 comments
Hey, y'all!
I'm a 15-year-old kid learning programming. Have been learning for a while and probably will keep on learning for the rest of my career, but I've made peace with it and I actually really enjoy it. It's comforting, somehow. I'm here to ask a question about learning habits. I'm working on a personal blog as a 'portfolio' portfolio piece.
Basically a full-stack platform with all my projects, documented, and everything. I want to link it back to everything I'll put up on YT, as well. It's a place where I can throw all my experiments and expand it further into a full, complex 'learning center' for all my material in the future. Thought it was a pretty neat idea. I've decided not to give into scope creep and I am almost ready to ship a super basic version with all the core features (which I can then build upon further). Have had a lot of fun, but also darker days when nothing was working.
Asking AI for help has been pretty tempting on those days. It helped me progress faster and get this thing ready faster, but I also feel that it has slowed down my learning somehow (even though I feel like I know way, way more than I have known and can code way more by myself than I could in past years).
How can I use AI properly? Am I using AI properly? Is CS even worth pursuing anymore (I love it, and everything seems to lead my heart back to it - I want to be a great computer scientist, not only a great 'coder', cuz there are enough of those already...)? How can I come up with a solution (even when it feels impossible) from disconnected resources when a slight boost from AI gets the momentum going again and seals the gaps I can't?
In other words, how can I be more thorough and enforce a deeper understanding even when it feels impossible to get anywhere without a little push?
Cheers for your time! Can't wait to see what you guys have to say.
SkerdiBuilds@reddit
Use AI as a hint system, not a shortcut, try first, then ask why, not just how. That why you learn good foundamentals.
AceLamina@reddit
First off, if you're learning, ignore the hype and don't use AI A lot of people fail to do this and then they can't code without AI
Best way is to learn first and use AI after so you know what its doing
McRoager@reddit
A suggestion: Use AI exclusively conversationally.
Never use its code. Never show it yours. Talk to it about what's happening, and look up further info based on what it tells you.
This helps keep you involved and learning, and not just with the code itself. Also research skills and communication skills.
babypho@reddit
To add on to this, use it to explain the why of things. Why does the code work like this, why did they do it this way, why here instead of somewhere else, what are some other alternatives?
Then try to tinker with it to see what breaks and what work. Try to visualize the flow of the code and what is it trying to do.
opal-emporium@reddit
It's awesome that you're building a full-stack portfolio at 15 and thinking about your learning habits with AI – that's a really forward-thinking approach. Using AI as a tool to understand complex concepts or debug frustrating issues can be incredibly powerful, as long as you focus on internalizing the solutions. It's about leveraging it to accelerate learning, not replace fundamental understanding. For insights into which coding AIs are excelling right now, particularly Claude Code, there's a detailed comparison available at https://practicalwebtools.com/blog/claude-code-vs-every-alternative-in-2026-an-honest-breakdown-for-developers.
franker@reddit
assuming you made this site because all your comments mention it - cut down on the ads a little. Without an adblocker it's just nuts trying to read it.
Omniscientcammaleon@reddit
The basics with AI usage for learning is: everything it does for you, you wont get better at, even if it seems like you do. Just keep that in mind anytime you want to use it.
Specifically the part of "you wont get better at it even if it seems like you do" is specially true, at least from experience.
mrburnerboy2121@reddit
I would use AI to explain problems and how to understand breaking down projects into smaller pieces. Never ask it for the answer, just a hint on how to approach things.
MarcusTomms@reddit
Write claude or gpt to schedule a 20 hours learning program with 80/20 principle
AlSweigart@reddit
Jeez, every 8 damn years or so the economy turns upside down and people are like, "Don't bother getting a CS degree, all those jobs are outsourced" or "You should study blockchains!" or "You should learn COBOL because there's a lot of jobs there" or "You should become a plumber" or some other stupid advice they got from a headline or half-remembered tik tok.
My dad was an electrician throughout the 90s and 2000s. It's not a guarantee to financial stability. You want to know why Americans have a fetish for mining and factory jobs? Because miners and factory workers unionized, and that's how you turn shit jobs into decent jobs.
k1v1uq@reddit
Learning C could do that. It'll teach about memory and hardware architecture. When I was your age, I was also really into Assembly. Why not pick up RISC Assembly? Or get a Raspberry Pi and start Hardware Programming. If you own an Nvidia GPU learn Cuda.
Decide on a project and work on it for weeks or, ideally, months. Get to know your "territory".
CS (reaseach) is math and proof heavy.. Lookup TurboQuant / PolarQuant to get an idea.
in general yes. Look for something that combines AI and hardware (robotics, GPU programming). I guess by the time you hit the Job Market you don't want to be the next Web developer. Or perhaps data centers will be still too expensive and hiring people to maintain legacy apps will be still a thing. Who knows.
Normal. Don't worry about it.
Use AI to mentor you and learn, but do not let it solve your problems. You are young. Your brain is still developing until the age of 21, and learning is extremely important neurologically. So no shortcuts! You have to shift your mindset away from "I have to complete X in record time or else I will fail" to "I'm having fun learning and exploring something new."
Speaking of neurons, there are many fields with a significant lack of CS experts. Bioinformatics, Medicine, Neuroscience, Robotics.
National-Motor3382@reddit
The fact that you’re asking this at 15 means you’re already thinking about it more carefully than most people who’ve been coding for a decade.
Here’s the thing about AI slowing down your learning. It probably is, in some ways. But so does Stack Overflow, so does copying from tutorials, so does asking a senior dev for help.
The question was never “did I figure this out completely alone.” The question is whether you understand it after.
My rule is simple. Before I ask AI for anything, I write down what I think the answer might be, even if it’s wrong. Then I look at what AI says and compare. That gap between what I thought and what the answer actually was that’s where the learning happens. If you skip straight to asking, you skip the gap.
On CS being worth it. You said you love it and everything keeps pulling you back. That’s your answer. The job market shifts, the tools change, some things get automated. None of that touches the part where you actually enjoy thinking through hard problems. That part doesn’t expire.
Ship the blog. Even the basic version. You’ll learn more from one real thing you shipped than from ten things you kept polishing.
BizAlly@reddit
I went through the same phase, and the biggest trap with AI is it makes things feel like you understand them when you actually just recognize them.
thuiop1@reddit
Just don't use AI.
dropkickninja@reddit
Can anyone suggest a good intro resource on getting started with coding with ai as a tool?
token-tensor@reddit
Using AI as a momentum-starter rather than a solution-giver is actually the right instinct. The trick is asking it to explain concepts rather than write code — something like 'why does this approach work' instead of 'fix my code'. Try a 20-minute rule: struggle with it yourself first, then use AI to close the gap you identified, not replace the struggle entirely. The fact that you're questioning whether you're learning deeply at 15 already puts you ahead — most people never think to ask that.
Due-Influence0523@reddit
I think using AI is fine as long as you treat it like a helper not a shortcut, meaning you still take time to understand and rebuild the solution yourself instead of just copying it.
thatonereddditor@reddit
The end goal is to be good enough at programming that you can stop using AI as a crutch. What I did when I was trying to learn programming was instead of my AI tabs, when I didn't know something, I would google it.
OtherwiseFlamingo868@reddit
I would say this might be the wrong way to look at AI. As AI isnt a crutch but a tool to speed up your programming. In some places it is a good tool and in others it is bad. When learning you should certainly not constantly use it for everything. But you can also learn a lot about programming from AI/looking at AI generated code and evaluate or review said code yourself.
My suggestion would be to use both. Use the documentation, its better for getting an overview of what exists in an api and even for looking over all the details of specific calls. On the other hand AI is also a google on steroids which can give you several recommendations on different things that you would still be using things like stack exchange for...
Additionally learn to use AI to generate complex pieces of code fast, and understand the pros and cons of that. Also learn to not use AI by also having times where you program mostly everything by hand.
Green-Tooth-4686@reddit
true
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
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Turbulent-Hippo-9680@reddit
you’re asking the right question way earlier than most people, which is a good sign. i’d use AI like a coach, not like a teleport button. ask for hints, debugging questions, or concepts explained smaller, but still force yourself to build chunks alone and sit with the friction sometimes. the discomfort is annoying, but that’s where a lot of the real pattern-building happens.
emnotbr@reddit
Learning how to read documentation and properly search things in google is a super great skill. If you want to stop using AI try limiting your tools (libraries etc) to the basics and see what you can create. Also when you said it feels impossible to get anywhere without a push… look at it like your brain is still building pathways and is deepen your understanding. Go make cool stuff!
(Sorry English isn’t my first language)