Tired of using ai for development mindlessly i want to learn how things work...but how???
Posted by Financial_Area_6260@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 34 comments
Hey, I am 20 years old and very interested in programming and coding. I want to make some really awesome things, and I have ideas and plans too, but I don’t know how to code. I have basic knowledge like HTML, CSS, and a bit of JS, but that’s all.
I know in the world of AI, people say use this AI for the frontend and this for the backend, but I want to understand. AI can’t create things the way I want, and even if it can, I have no idea how it’s working. For example, if something breaks, it takes me hours of chatting with AI just to realise it’s only about a few minutes of work if I knew what was really going on.
So that’s why, after creating many web projects by using AI mindlessly and so-called prompt engineering, I realise that if I do this in the long run, it won’t help me when I do jobs and stuff.
So yeah, I want to learn now, but I have no idea how, so I came here for guidance.
Thanks
AlSweigart@reddit
Stop using AI. Or at least stop having AI generate any code for you. Ask it questions, but explicitly tell it not to give you example code.
Ordering off a menu gets you a nice meal, but it doesn't teach you how to cook.
Impossible-Stick243@reddit
Yo, I am a 17M 2nd year sotware development student nearing my 3rd year rn and I really wanna help. My advice is just self study and practice a lot. You can start by using this developer roadmap:
https://roadmap.sh/
Pick which kind of developer you want to be then learn the languages at:
https://www.w3schools.com/
And while youre doing that try making projects every now and then.
lifeistoolong_007@reddit
bro this is exactly where i was, built stuff with ai and had no idea what was happening under the hood ,what helped me was just picking one thing and actually learning it properly without ai. currently doing hyperskill for java and just forcing myself to type everything manually .it's slower but you actually understand what's happening
Alive_Offer_560@reddit
Make a project, use AI just to ask syntax. Most important think is you know what you wanted to do and what logic you want to use.
For example you want to make some function, you know you want to use loop for example but you don’t know the loop syntax in js or php, use AI just to ask that.
mirrorindia@reddit
See engineering team just paid because of their thinking either logic building, critical thinking or add new feature in project and edge case and at final human in the loop so dont try to learn syntax or programming at any cost in future you're not going to write code just try to think and break the system like no in this project this feature is good or bad and make some edge cases like when its going to fail either in production or releases , not focus on typical html css js react or whatever options is in market
shrodikan@reddit
As the AI to go through the code with you. Ask if there are better approaches. Read the code to understand and look for gotchas. Ask the AI to analyze performance issues and optimizations. Discuss approaches and design patterns. Leverage AI to explore the space not just generating code.
haremKing137@reddit
This, using AI for generating code is dumb imo. Using AI to know what concepts and tools you need to learn is ideal.
I am not saying, ask the name of the concept/tool and overview, only ask the name and then you do the research from your side.
Also use it to know other approaches, what other kind of tool you could've used, but again don't just read the answer and call it a day, use that info to quickly go to the correct documentation, instead of wasting time for something might not exist, or looking in the wrong way
shrodikan@reddit
I disagree. Using AI to ONLY generate code is dumb. Use it to introspect and generate code is the only way.
flembag@reddit
Have you tried using ai to answer questions about information you dont understand stand instead of asking it to perform a task? Like a conversational tutor?
JG-Vulcan@reddit
Change the way you ask ai questions. Instead of “build me a to do list web app” ask “without providing me any code, how would I go about creating a to do list web app”. It saves googling and searching through stack overflow but still isn’t handing you the code. Also, something that helped me is almost interrogating the ai, if it tells you to use something, ask why, ask if there are alternatives, ask why this is the best approach, ask what lines of code mean what.
Ai is a good tool but using it in the wrong way can definitely be detrimental to learning
Able-Preparation843@reddit
This is a trap many beginners fall into now. Since you already have some JS basics, the best way to stop relying on AI is to pick one 'Logic-Heavy' project and ban yourself from using LLMs for 48 hours. Try building something like a Vanilla JS Todo List or a Weather App using only MDN Web Docs and Stack Overflow. It’ll be painful, but that's where the actual 'synapses' fire. What’s the most complex thing you’ve tried to build so far????
Worth_Wealth_6811@reddit
Solid advice. One nuance: the trap isn't AI, it's letting the AI hallucinate context. When you use AI later, wire it to deterministic data sources via MCP so it pulls real values instead of inventing them. Free example: `npx u/gitdealflow/mcp-signal`. The skill to learn is how to ground AI, not avoid it.
Financial_Area_6260@reddit (OP)
The most complex thing for me was a system where you can upload your PDF, and it generates a question paper by analysing the PDF and its content. It was my college project
f3ack19@reddit
Thats just a RAG system. If you want to understand software engineering, building a scalable app from scratch will teach you more from auth, database design, real time sync, deployment, scaling and so on than a basic RAG system
yareon@reddit
He meant without using AI
Mell-Silver-20@reddit
Yeah super common trap, just build small stuff on your own, struggle through it a bit, that's where you actually learn. AI's fine, just don't lean on it for everything.
SillyRazzmatazz3902@reddit
Hi, software engineer here for almost a decade. My advice for you is to stop worrying about the technical details until you know what you want to build. When you know what your goal is, the things you need to learn and use will reveal itself. That’s when you start your research and understanding of what you are typing or the AI is generating. If you want to learn how things work, copy a small code snippet you don’t understand and ask AI to explain it. Go deeper into it as much as you need. It’s pretty good at that.
MutaitoSensei@reddit
Zerotomastery.io currently has a 10 day for free that ends May 10. Give them a try!
Witty-Afternoon-2427@reddit
Stop outsourcing thinking to AI and start building small things yourself from scratch even if it’s slow because that’s where real understanding comes from
Witty-Afternoon-2427@reddit
You don’t learn by avoiding AI, you learn by building small things yourself first and only using AI after you’ve already tried and failed a bit
haremKing137@reddit
Use AI to learn, use it as a private teacher, but don't just copy and ask, the question you need to ask is: what is the name of this component. And use that to know what exactly to search.
An example is you are building smth and the AI tells you to use a library and use a function. Just ask it what is the function name and concept name, then search it up.
Just use AI correctly, it is an amazing tool for learning, nobody wants to spend 5 hours because they don't know the name of the piece they need to learn, that is just a waste of time.
VibrantGypsyDildo@reddit
How? Without AI. Google every step. Forget and learn it again 5 times.
yellowmonkeyzx93@reddit
One smart way to use AI, while you still do the coding is to ask the AI to plan out the steps. Then from there, you can manually code.
aqua_regis@reddit
And that is simply the most detrimental use of AI to learn.
Code is the easy part. The design, the steps are the difficult part in learning programming. The implementation is comparatively trivial.
Learning programming is not learning programming languages. Learning programming is learning to do exactly what you suggest to outsource to AI.
yellowmonkeyzx93@reddit
.. and this is one reason people are so inflexible.
Not everyone has access to the experience and knowledge to develop and plan. AI is there to help people learn. I totally agree it can be abused and that is the detriment to the user's long term growth. All the same, at the end of the day.. AI tools has made programming more accessible to people, to allow them to develop their own way of learning at their own pace.
Financial_Area_6260@reddit (OP)
That's a nice idea
itsmunzir@reddit
i went through this exact phase last year - built three next.js apps with chatgpt and couldn't explain how any of them actually worked. the turning point was rebuilding the simplest one without ai using just the docs, which took four painful days but finally made me understand why useeffect runs twice in strict mode. pick your smallest project and rewrite it from scratch with the mdn docs open - when it breaks, resist the ai urge for 30 minutes and read the actual error. that's where the real learning starts.
Financial_Area_6260@reddit (OP)
thank i will try this
r_hayess@reddit
This is a very common trap right now. My advice: Force yourself to build something small without touching AI at all for the first 70% of the project. Use MDN docs or official documentation instead of prompts. Once you understand the 'why' behind the code, AI becomes a powerful tool instead of a crutch. You'll realize that 2 hours of chatting with AI can often be solved in 5 minutes of reading the docs
aqua_regis@reddit
It's simple: stop using AI and start learning like people did mere 6 years ago when AI wasn't a thing.
There are more than enough resources, like roadmap.sh that already has been suggested, like The Odin Project, like Free Code Camp. Use them. Make your own projects - start small and simple and grow in size, scope, and complexity.
Financial_Area_6260@reddit (OP)
i am rn using The odin project
bird_feeder_bird@reddit
Make a text adventure in Python. Its hard enough that you need to know what you’re doing, but not so hard that you need AI. Nearly the entirety of “Learn Python the Hard Way” by Zed Shaw is built around this idea.
Books in general are a good way to learn, because they’re written with the mindset that you’re learning the basics for personal education so you can eventually do things on your own, rather than being product-focused like when using AI. If reading textbooks feels difficult and boring, that’s good, that’s the feeling of strengthening your prefrontal cortex.
A_man_from_america@reddit
https://roadmap.sh/
You can use this to visualize what you need to learn, step by step.
Financial_Area_6260@reddit (OP)
thanks for roadmap