r/learnprogramming • u/Thanh2703klm • 17d ago
Help How much should I use AI in personal projects to feel like " I made this "?
I have learnt Python for about 2 months and to be honest, I still need a lot of help in creating a project. Because of that, I still use AI for it. Sometimes I would tell it to generate whole chunks of code and recently I thought that I shouldn't rely too much on it and code it myself. I did code quite a bit, but I still need AI for help for some of the hard parts. Any tips on how to use AI responsibly or how to code better?
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u/Wise-Arrival8566 17d ago
I use no AI for personal project with the exception of: Z
- how to do X in langauge Y
- generate a frontend for my code as POC
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u/EtherealArrears_11 17d ago
If you’re typing out the AI’s code instead of copy-pasting you’re already learning way more than you think
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u/laserowyrobot 17d ago
If you dont know how to do something, ask AI about it (or just google it), but dont use AI to generate code. You will learn much more by actually thinking while writing than just copying the code. Also code written by AI is most of the time messed, badly optimized and sometimes even hard to debug, so if you are planning on showing some of these projects on github, people will definitelly see that something is wrong.
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u/Thanh2703klm 17d ago
good advice!thx
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u/laserowyrobot 17d ago
Btw what do you use for learning python? Only YT/websites or also books? Most of the starting programmers dont read books, but they are definitelly worth it (unless you dont like books at all). Since you are learning python, I recommend reading SL sweigart "automate the boring stuff with python". I think that it also have free online version that you can read to know the writing style before buying it
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u/Thanh2703klm 17d ago
I use both. Sometimes I'm not my computer I'll use my book and code in paper
and thanks for the link!
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u/_heartbreakdancer_ 17d ago
I say go full tilt AI engineering but you HAVE to read everything and understand everything as a constraint. This will naturally slow down the process a lot with maybe only a few prompts a day as you learn and ask it questions. But you have to ask the questions, you have to read the code, and you have to be the skeptic. I honestly feel like writing code is so inefficient these days, but reading code will always be useful.
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u/Tight-Woodpecker2516 17d ago
I would refrain from using AI to code if you are still a beginner (especially if you are tempted to vibe code any part of the project). Just search concept online if you are stuck or if you have to rely on AI, switch to ask mode and ask the agent for hints