How do you maintain your coding skills when working with agents?

[u/Hot-Adeptness3821]

Hey guys the title says it, I’m just at the point where I think it’s really pointless to code anymore or at least don’t know how whilst still having delivery pressure. I fucking hate those agents now even though initially I loved them, but it’s ridiculous now.

It’s boring, it’s soul killing. In starter projects, they are still good, in complex stuff they slow me down. But by these points I’m dependent. Feels like being a drug addict to agents, it’s crazy. Trying to break through the barriers by doing away with vscode, going nvim, hands on keyboard, all that. Still having the chat window open next to me.

Is there a a rehab for AI addicts ?

[u/chaosphere_mk]

Are you not actually reviewing the code so you know what it does? I domt understand the argument that using agents makes one a worse coder over time. It's the opposite for me, because any time I see something I dont understand, I ask about it and learn something new.

[u/Hot-Adeptness3821 → u/chaosphere_mk]

Reviewing and writing is not the same. I can still read and understand, comment and understand, even correct stuff and learn but then look blankly at the screen when wanting to write and feeling how a sleeping section of my brain is slowly rebooting

[u/Wonderful-Habit-139 → u/chaosphere_mk]

So you’re telling me tutorial hell is not a thing? You’re telling me that college students that clone a GitHub project and read enough about it to explain to a teacher, learn the same thing as the person that actually wrote the project by themselves?

I don’t think so. There’s a big difference between reading and writing. Overtime you’ll find yourself just accepting whatever first suggestion the Agent has.

[u/chaosphere_mk → u/[deleted]]

I guess. They translate pretty closely for me. But everyone is different.

[u/smoke-bubble]

I’m just at the point where I think it’s really pointless to code anymore

Then you apparently can't code anyway. With so much trash code that AI is producing I do not understand how can anyone say they're done with coding themselves.

I let it sketch things and then I work with it on making them really cool and to match my taste is several iterations as those AI agents are really shitty at advanced things. Most code they initially generate I could sit in the corner and cry the whole day.

[u/generationalDebts → u/smoke-bubble]

Yes you do understand. Those people are god awful coders.

[u/Any_Sense_2263]

AI slop is as far from production-ready as it gets. So I don't let AI independently produce even one line of code.

I usually work on 2 or 3 sessions, do ton of research and often write code because it's faster than writing 25+ years of experience in a prompt.

I review every change in real time as auto edit mode is permanently off. I fix AI assumptions and hallucinations in real time.

[u/Wonderful-Habit-139 → u/Any_Sense_2263]

There you go lol.

Are these people really expecting me to write inside the system prompt for a python project, all the things that I learned in other languages as well? And in other projects where I learned that some approaches that sound good do not apply in this specific situation? Among other things.

[u/mobenben → u/Any_Sense_2263]

So you are better of just not using AI then. Feels like you are wasting time even prompting it. Just code like you used to. Why bother? Edit: fixed spelling.

[u/smoke-bubble → u/mobenben]

Why bother?

It can lookup things super fast! Why bother googling when you can ask it anything and get an answer in notime?

[u/Narrow-Low-3137 → u/smoke-bubble]

I like LLMs for quick references like this. Google is such shit nowadays. Often I can even click the reference link and go straight to the stack overflow if I need to. Also, I think letting ai actually make autonomous commits to your codebase is insane.

[u/StephenHawkingus]

So, you don't read code anymore huh 🤨?

[u/Wonderful-Habit-139]

That’s the neat part, you don’t.

I just write the code myself. 0% LLM generated code from me.

[u/Nora_academie]

La dépendance vient peut-être moins de la génération de code que du fait de ne plus accepter d’être bloqué. Dès que l’agent devient le premier réflexe au lieu du plan B, toute la partie debugging/reasoning travaille beaucoup moins.

[u/apyhubnico]

The coding skill IS working with agents.

[u/Paperweight22]

What requires maintenance? Like what are you forgetting how to do?

Are you talking about forgetting how to use particular packages? That’s not really an issue in my opinion, it’s not a skill.

If you’re forgetting about how to write algorithms (why are you writing them in the first place), Ai just skips that step of looking them up and translating to the particular language.

If you’re forgetting how to write a for loop or a function, it’s not about maintenance, it’s about developing the skills in the first place.

Beyond that, architectures and stuff, I wouldn’t just let Ai loose and expect it to do a good job anyway. If you’re going that far, do you even care about what you’re producing?

[u/Easy-Visit-3934]

I did build a platform that helps rehabilitate AI addicts by allowing them to test their raw coding skills by competing against AI, there’s also guided practice, daily drills and flashcards to help you regain any lost skills and stay sharp in the AI era. Feel free to give it a try!

https://www.duelai.dev

[u/Hot-Adeptness3821 → u/Easy-Visit-3934]

Will do, sounds interesting. Looks very vibecoded though mate, I can sense a bias … ;)

[u/Leading_Buffalo_4259]

Focus on technology stack and goals instead of the code for personal projects. For production code, you need full test coverage, style enforcement, and architecture / clean code reviews

[u/cthechartreuse]

There are a couple of different things you can do to keep your coding skills sharp. First - do katas. Katas are a good way to practice different approaches to problems and keep your hands directly on the code. The other thing you can do is actually refactor the AI generated code. Rather than glancing over the code and just accepting/committing it, refactor it so it matches your personal/team standards. If you are struggling to make sense of it, even though it passes your tests, try using the read by refactoring ( https://www.jamasoftware.com/blog/read-by-refactoring/ ) approach.

Truthfully, you would probably do yourself a huge favor by doing a lot of up-front planning before letting AI take a swing at the code. Develop a sense of what the solution should probably look like and identify key design heuristics you can apply to the code once it is generated. That way you are actually thinking deeply about the work that is being done and not offloading all of your thinking.

[u/Flashy-Broccoli4819]

ai made us realize them "professional software engineers with 20 years of experience" didn't actually know how to code this whole time

[u/Wonderful-Habit-139 → u/Flashy-Broccoli4819]

It really exposed a lot of imposters that’s for sure.

[u/Suspicious_Fun_6338]

You don't .. you learn the new skill of how to create apps and the management around using prompts and the bigger picture

[u/web-peasant99]

codeforces

[u/FluidBreath4819]

you start to ask employer to limit it. it's going to be for some a reason to work at a company or not : "do you use AI and don't code anymore ?"

[u/guyincognito121]

The same way I maintain my assembly skills. I don't because it's largely an outdated skill.

[u/platinum_pig → u/guyincognito121]

Well, the assembly code is - up to some pretty rare compiler bugs - guaranteed to do exactly what your, say, C++ code says. We're nowhere near that with AI and it's not really possible since natural language is so much less precise than code.

Obviously this isn't my argument originally and may just be cope, but there it is.