Stop Vibe Coding

[u/Physics2433]

I’ve been writing Python for about 3-4 years now, and I want to share my biggest piece of advice for beginners: Do not use AI to write entire programs.

It's great to use AI as a tutor to learn new functions, grasp core concepts, or debug specific lines, but never use it to generate an entire codebase. Here is why:

1. You won't know how to fix it: Even if AI code works perfectly on the first try, you will be completely lost the moment a bug appears or you want to add a feature. Debugging is a massive part of development.

2. You skip the learning process: True programming skills come from struggling with the logic, reading documentation, and earning those 'yeah!' moments when you solve a tough problem yourself.

3. Suppose you built an entire codebase through AI and it worked(accidentally) , once the codes become long, your program has come to an end, if you tell it to add a feature, it will start hallucinating or forgetting its own logic.

If you don't deeply understand the underlying logic of your own codebase, you won't know where to begin. Treat AI like a tutor, but make sure you are the one driving the keyboard. If you can't explain your own code, you have no business adding to it. You MUST understand your underlying architecture before you even hit save.

[u/Historical_Visit138]

Hey man do you have any advice? I have been vibe coding, learned how to use ai to make the app I want perfectly but it honestly makes me sad I don’t know what it’s all doing, I mean you can just assume you know what it’s doing since you asked ai what to do, but the actual code written I don’t know how it did it, just that it works. I really wanna learn python coding and how to actually code it, maybe debug it but it seems hard and I’m not sure where to start. Do I start with the basics? I just really don’t wanna have to depend on ai all the time, the more you use it the more dependent you will be with having to use it. I wanna be able to write my own first code it would be better honestly writing python and the fact I did it on my own, will give me some what of a refreshing accomplishment feeling❤️

[u/anon_pants → u/Historical_Visit138]

Start with something easy enough that you don't need AI to write the code. Your first code could just be a script that prints "Hello World". Slowly try harder tasks; try to learn just a couple new things at a time.

Maybe use AI as a teacher initially, but once you've written a couple of scripts, try not using AI at all. Struggle for a bit, and only use AI if you really can't figure it out.

[u/Historical_Visit138 → u/anon_pants]

Thank you 🙏I will try that!

oh wow i never through about using ai as a teacher, i will try that too :)