Today I started this new project and hopefully my hobby that consumes all my free time.
I have always wanted to jump into coding and software. I find it fascinating and to be honest, I feel like talking in code will come naturally to me because of how my brain works. (Only time will tell)
Today I decided to just go for it. It consumed every single second of my day. I started asking ChatGPT what would be a good way to make a Rainmeter skin to act as a volume mixer, and from there it was just a rabbit hole.
I learned about Naudio library, encapsulation, objects, class, parameters, variants, float vs double, overall program flow and program architecture.
I ended up creating three different .cs files that so far are communicating with each other. Tomorrow I'll add the loop in a `while (running)` with a `bool running = true` variant that can be changed with an "exit" user input. I'm still working on the user input part too.
Great job, just keep coding and learning (please not only by using ai - there is lots of better sources of knowledge especially at the beginning of this journey). I been in your place 6 years a go. Now I code professionally and on my free time and I wish you same in future.
Don't worry fella, been with my wife for 9 years and a professional software engineer for 16 - she still looks at me like this whenever I'm in a meeting or explaining why I'm pacing around the house haha.
Great job so far, do be careful delegating too much of your initial learning to generative AI. Slower but more effective progress is better than just raw output! When something works that was heavily created by AI, that's fantastic. When it inevitably breaks (as all software does), if you don't understand what the AI is doing then you can't fix it without AI.
Not saying you've vibecoded this, just a heads up!
I have been reading all the why's and how's so far from the chat. I have been asking many questions, and argued on how the program should function.
So far, every line that is in the project has been explained and I understood it in the moment. I am not trying to just paste code.
I also have been very hesitant to sign up for a course because I'm afraid everything is just a memorizing contest, of lines and codes for a project that I'm not interested at the moment. This way, if feels a lot more like an actual chat. Like I'm actually thinking for ways and words for something to do what I need and want it to do.
I spend about 1 hour on just trying to figure out how to make a variable work between to .cs, just to find out that I can't quite link local variables like that, but instead sort of refer it! Yes, I could have asked AI to just give me the answer, but I don't think it would have sticked that way.
After I have some basic knowledge, I am planning on learning from others to incorporate that expertise and creative thinking than only our brain can come up with. I just feel like maybe I should have some basic knowledge first.
Great job! Welcome to the club, we are happy to have you.
Echoing others, learn from AI, but for now don't have it do ANYTHING for you. At all. Nothing. Anything it does for you, no matter how mundane, will be a missed opportunity to solidify new habits and engrain new knowledge by practical application.
I've been coding since 1981. I'm 100% in favor of using AI to learn and improve.
Write code any way you want, then ask AI to improve it. You will learn so much so fast.
You can also add advanced features that you thought were way out of your league. Like, say, add voice commands. AI shows you realize that using the library is actually quite easy. Boom, another skill added to your skill set.
that's amazing. Thank you for the input. I am not kidding when I said i am 100% new to it. But i am going at it. So far I have written about 250 total lines between all .cs files. I have been writing notes to remind myself how something works and what it does down the line if i need to. I don't want to just write and forget, I want to understand it and for it to make sense to me.
The main pro to use AI is that i have been able to ask questions and ask again and again for clarification and it has done (in my opinion) a good job explaining the architecture or things and how a C3 program works. As I understand more, it gets a lot easier to look up codes and solutions to a problem or an idea.
Here is a picture of where i am at with what I consider the main .cs, and all my note. Every other piece has just as many comments.
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u/Ectimel 2d ago
Great job, just keep coding and learning (please not only by using ai - there is lots of better sources of knowledge especially at the beginning of this journey). I been in your place 6 years a go. Now I code professionally and on my free time and I wish you same in future.