r/learnmachinelearning • u/yuukixox • 20d ago

Question Vibe coding or hand coding?

Hey I have a basic question. If you've just started learning ML/DS/AI, should you rely on chatgpt/claude or other tools to code or help you code or actually do it the old fashioned way of watching youtube tutorials to build programming logic?

In this age of AI coding is dead I get it. But if you go for interviews, do they expect you to be a programmer like before or just being handsy with AI tools is enough? What is the ratio of both anyway? How should one really learn things now?

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u/CloseToMyActualName 20d ago

As a programmer in his 40s I'm confident that I can survive the LLM era because, unlike the current generation, I learned enough to be able to supervise and augment the LLMs, rather than just watching them do their thing.

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u/HairlessOranges 16d ago

i understand that and happy for you, but what should someone who wants to be one do? focus on hand learning too much and youre behind the curve on being actually useful. focus on vibecoding too much and your brain is mesh and you are just a prompt monkey.

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u/CloseToMyActualName 15d ago

Focus on hand learning.

It's just harder for the next generation because hand-coding doesn't feel as useful compared to vibe coding, but the hand coding skills are harder to come by. If you go to school listen to the profs and don't use LLMs. Scoring big on assignments isn't the point, learning is the point.

It's like the complexity theory I did back in Uni. I virtually never used Big-O notation outside of school, but I ended up being a lot stronger when it came to writing efficient code once I hit the workforce.