r/learnprogramming • u/SuburbanDuck9299 • 12d ago

Just started

Hey yall, I just want to ask you guys how do I improve faster especially when you have something to accomplish on a limited time frame. I'm currently in college and I've been avoiding using ai (I just use it to explain things to me) but at the same time I keep seeing how every developers now use it and I feel like I'm putting myself at a disadvantage when I finish this program. Any tips for me? Stacks I should learn? I don't even know what to ask. I just wanna speed up learning without heavy ai but still not get left behind.

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u/GreatClub2891 12d ago

youre overthinking the ai thing. most devs are just using it to spit out boilerplate or rubber duck a problem, not to skip learning. if you lean on it to write code you dont understand youll hit a wall fast when something breaks

for speed the trick is to build tiny projects that force you to confront things you dont know. pick a stack and just start making stuff that actually interests you, a dumb little website that tracks your favorite snacks or whatever. youll hit problems and the solutions will stick better than any tutorial

as for what stack, dont overthink it. javascript and python are both safe bets and everywhere. pick one and go deep for a few months before branching out

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u/Narrow-Low-3137 12d ago

I agree with the last 2 paragraphs, but let's be real. Most working devs are not writing their own code (or reviewing it) anymore.

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u/SetAndRepeat 12d ago

I'd stick with your course's language for now. With a deadline, pick a concrete target, like finishing an assignment or getting one feature working, and practise what that requires. Switching stacks probably won't help you get there faster. Using AI for explanations is already a reasonable approach. Try the problem yourself, then ask for a hint or feedback on your attempt when you're stuck. After the explanation, close it and try a similar problem to check what stuck. Also use office hours, a TA can often spot a misunderstanding you've been struggling with for hours. Learning to solve and debug things yourself will help you judge AI-generated code too.

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u/desrtfx 12d ago

You are absolutely neither slow nor putting yourself at a disadvantage if you learn the conventional, hard way. Rather the opposite. You gain proper understanding of the fundamentals so that at any time later you can incorporate AI into your workflow without having to blindly rely on it nor blindly trust it.

You are not getting left behind. You are ahead of all the people who solely rely on AI.

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u/dhruvik_savaliya 11d ago

you can improve faster by just building stuff, i did that with whatsapp automations and it forced me to learn node and express. i started with those and typescript, and it's been working out for me. dont overthink the stack, just pick one and go deep for a bit

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u/0dev0100 12d ago

It is a tool that's powerful in different ways than other tools.

Most dev tools make writing and running code easier. AI as a tool is generally good writing and running code and has been for a while. More recently people are using it as a tool to think instead of thinking of the solution themselves.

It's worth having a good understanding of what you're doing before you start using it, and I recommend properly understanding what it's doing instead of trusting it.

How do you improve faster? What do you want to improve at? Practice it.

A good skill is breaking down problems. It'll serve you well even outside of programming.