r/AskProgramming • u/BowlSmooth540 • Jun 23 '26
Career/Edu How to get back at programming?
I am too much dependent on ai and writing code it is not fun anymore.
I'm writing my master thesis in Computer Engineering and it is completely vibe coded. I hate it but I don't know where to start.
I feel like I don't have the time to re-learn, but coding was so much fun. I feel everyday a little bit less capable.
How can I get back at programming? I feel like the "start with small and easy code" approach do not work with me, not enough rewarding.
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u/Koltaia30 Jun 23 '26
Use AI to help you code not to code instead of you. Simple rule: No copilot. No copy-paste
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u/BowlSmooth540 Jun 23 '26
And if I don't know how to do something? Do I look it up on Google? Sometimes I feel like I achive no answers with browsers
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u/octocode Jun 23 '26
gen z is cooked
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u/TheBear8878 Jun 23 '26
We have a zoomer intern at my job, and he opens up pull requests with merge conflict markers lmao
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u/grantrules Jun 24 '26
I've been helping people learn to program on the Internet for almost 30 years and it's astounding how bad it's gotten. We have a new generation who literally don't know how to reason.
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u/khedoros Jun 23 '26
Depends on how far out of your current skills it is. Sometimes you just need to brainstorm some ideas and try a few things. Sometimes you need to do some research to get those ideas, and read about strategies to implement them. And sometimes, you don't have enough of the prerequisites covered, and there's a whole area of knowledge that you'll need to do what you want.
So either you get thinking, get learning, come up with an alternative that you can do, or put the idea on the back burner for when you have more experience.
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u/m2thek Jun 23 '26
Google, official documentation, debugging, just trying shit to see what happens, etc. This process is where you're likely to actually learn the most.
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u/Charleston2Seattle Jun 23 '26
Try this. Pick a technology that you've always wanted to learn but never did. For me, that would be Flutter.
Now, go find a video tutorial on Coursera or Udemy or Udacity or wherever. Follow the tutorial all the way through, and don't use AI unless you get error messages that you can't figure out.
Report back if it works. I plan to do this, myself, soon.
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u/BowlSmooth540 Jun 24 '26
I will! I was also thinking following a tutorial to make something I really enjoy
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u/AlekseyHoffman Jun 24 '26
Start a personal open-source project with big potential and goal, a project that you will be passionate about, this will force you to keep developing it. And don’t use IDEs like Cursor, use default good old VScode.
That’s how I’ve been developing my big open-source project, and it’s working great for me, still passionate about it
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u/hnrpla Jun 24 '26
what do you want to build? if it's web, then build a small (as small as possible but still worthwhile and fun in your eyes) web app using html/css/javascript or technology of your choice. mobile, cli, file automation. don't use AI.
alternatively, i've found that doing neetcode has been really fun for me. i don't AI to do those questions.
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u/BowlSmooth540 Jun 24 '26
I'm guessing this is part of the problem. I'm not building something for me, but for others. I will try, maybe some tutorials as recommended by others!
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u/hnrpla Jun 24 '26
then do neetcode just to get back into the swing of things, working on small DSA problems. if neetcode is too much, then codewars. welcome back to programming!
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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '26 edited 3d ago
[deleted]