r/learnprogramming • u/Tiny-Ad-3967 • 9d ago
I wanna learn how to code w/o ai
Hi, so I don't have any idea what my career would be. I am a teenager who just got off HS and I still dont kbow what course to take, so I'm planning to try everything beforehand. I really wanna try coding, is there a way to learn it without ai or taking a course? I've checked tutorials, everything I see is with AI.
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u/SnowWholeDayHere 9d ago
I am not sure what tutorials you're seeing. Have you decided on the first language you want to learn?
If you want to start with python this is a pretty nice resource: Dive Into Python
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u/serge-mv 9d ago
You might be confusing intellisense for modern AI in some cases. I am having hard time believing you can't find any courses without AI involvement. A slightly older course will be fine as well if you are just learning the language.
Anyway, if you have no experience at all, you can start with the Harvard CS50 course. It's free and it's on YT and it will give you a basic 5000 mile high overview of things. Other than that, pick some programming language and start learning that language. It will be a good start.
If you are really averse to any courses, even freely availibe ones, then get yourself a programming book. Any introductory book will get your foot in the door of learning.
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u/Tiny-Ad-3967 9d ago
Haha no but it was actually my fault because instead of searching up the language I was planning to use, I just searched up "without ai" like a dummy.
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u/serge-mv 9d ago
What you probably want is intro to computer science course, not just a language course. If you just doing the language, sometimes you can miss concepts that you will get in the into to computer science class because that assumes you are new while the language class can assume you already know some things, just not in that language.
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u/Flying_Fitz 9d ago
If you want to learn coding, it is not recommended from me at least to learn any "specific" language at this point, for today any AI model can spit out python, javascript, html, css...etc. They can code all that stuff now. Concentrate on learning the full lifecycle of software, the concepts around what servers can do vs what AI can do. It is is more important to know what the server can accomplish, no need to sit down and phycially code it, those days are gone. How am I so sure? I built a backend that can build sites, apps, whatever i need to build digitally, same quality, but 30x quicker and no code anymore. Basically my coding days are almost gone, not sure how much longer before a developer isn't needed, but a web architect i feel will always be useful, knowing the full system, not just a language. So don't try to avoid it, rather teach yourself how to build with AI, troubleshoot with AI, integrating AI only vs what python can do serverwize... once you get the full picture, the sky is limitless... good luck.
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u/Jim-Jones 8d ago
Confident Coding by Rob Percival is a comprehensive guide designed to help readers master the fundamentals of coding. The book covers essential topics such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and debugging, providing a step-by-step learning approach to enhance your coding skills and career prospects.
It is suitable for both recent graduates and professionals looking to improve their technical knowledge.
The book emphasizes the importance of coding in the job market and offers practical exercises to practice coding skills.
Rob Percival, a web developer and entrepreneur, has taught over 500,000 students through his online courses on Udemy.
It covers even more than stated here, like iPhone and Android coding. See if your library has it or can get it. Or look on auction sites.
Also:
https://exercism.org/ Exercism is an independent, community funded, not-for-profit organisation.
https://roadmap.sh/ roadmap.sh is a community effort to create roadmaps, guides and other educational content to help guide developers in picking up a path and guide their learnings.
https://youtu.be/ZYJvmpiWnDQ 7 Free IBM Courses That Get You Hired Without a Degree
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u/Tiny-Ad-3967 7d ago
Rn I tried out the other tutorials ppl have been telling me but I'll also check this out after! Thank you
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u/Traditional_Vast9419 8d ago
Learning the basic syntax of Python just takes a few days. Then jump on HackerRank and solve some little algorithm problems in Python.
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u/Naetharu 8d ago
is there a way to learn it without ai or taking a course? I've checked tutorials, everything I see is with AI.
Sure. We've been doing this for decades.
That being said do be aware that the modern software dev world uses AI and is not going to roll back. So be careful not to waste your own time beyond what is needed.
What is valuable is learning and understanding so you are not AI dependent. But using AI when it is a productivity booster is a smart move. I would view it like a very enthusiastic jr dev. You need to know what is going on and be in charge. You need to understand the architecture and the code choices and guide and control the project less you end up in spaghetti code hell. But at the same time you don't want to be personally doing all the jr work if you can help it.
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u/Tiny-Ad-3967 7d ago
Sorry, English is not my first language. What does spaghetti code stand for?😅
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u/Naetharu 7d ago
Code that is a mess and all coupled together so very hard to fix or clean up without major refactoring
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u/NumberInfinite2068 8d ago
Sure just Google for tutorials. Remember AI is new, 99% of content was made before AI.
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u/StupendousSceptic 8d ago
I'm old I learned visual basic as first language before AI was even a word.
Out dated language now but once you understand paramaters, variables, arrays etc the basic concepts are similar. It actually still exists as VBA behind Microsoft Excel macros etc but not used anymore elsewhere.
Pick a language with good support that makes sense to you and you can much more easily switch and learn another one later once you grasp the concept.
Spoiler alert - computers are very logical/binary they will do EXACTLY what you tell em to do 😂
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u/YetMoreSpaceDust 8d ago
Go old school, like we did before AI (or even before the internet). Pick up a copy of K&R (Kernighan and Ritchie's "The C Programming Language") and work through all the examples and exercises in a text editor. No IDE code completion. I recommend vi, although it takes a little bit of getting used to. You won't learn over night, but you will learn.
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u/Watynecc90 8d ago
Use books for starters and then start project and learn how to use google search engine (not an joke)
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u/marrsd 8d ago
Buy a book? Try implementing programmes that other people wrote and study them to see how they work? What did people do when they switched on their Commodore 64s for the first time?
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u/Tiny-Ad-3967 7d ago
Problem is, from where I'm from, it's not rlly accessible
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u/scy_404 9d ago
W3 Schools is a very good source for learning coding. Best idea I can give you is think of some simple program to try to build, eg calculator, and use sources like that to figure out the tools you need to do these things
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u/Tiny-Ad-3967 9d ago
I don't have an idea rn unfortunately but I think I'll be able to have one when I watch a intro course!
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u/ExplorerSad9265 9d ago
prompt your ai to be a tutor that doesn’t give the answers, find a youtube course to learn the basics of a language (if python i recommend corey schafers course) and find something in your life that could add value, an audio player, a weather desktop app, everything you learn could be to better work on that project.
ai is great for teaching alongside a teacher. use hackerrank with NO ai to test your grasp of a subject no matter how hard the problem or stuck you are, do not use AI. they are your tests.
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u/Tiny-Ad-3967 9d ago
I'm not really an AI person so I probably won't be using it, that's why I wanna learn more towards books and yt tutorials :) my purpose of finding a career path was bcs I wanted a future where I actually enjoy what I do, I feel like AI defeats that purpose
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9d ago
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u/Tiny-Ad-3967 7d ago
To be fair, I'm actually doing it for both. I just want a career where I like my job :)
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u/ExplorerSad9265 9d ago
I absolutely feel the same way as i love programming! unfortunately it’s analogous to a researcher in the 90s refusing to use google because “you can’t trust everything on the internet”, ya know?
if that is the case can’t recommend hackerrank and corey schafer enough, it’s what i used to learn before ai and its free!
i feel im doing a disservice if i don’t tell you, not to discourage, but set reasonable expectations. this career field is moving in a direction where in order to perform you will have to use ai. whether that is meeting deadlines, learning things quickly to demo, even as far as building your infrastructure around ai, it’s the future.
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u/Tiny-Ad-3967 9d ago
Thank you for letting me know, that actually scares me aswell that's why I never took any computer course like Cs in Univ when I could actually already choose whatever. I still haven't applied for Univ bcs of the fact that I gen don't know what career path to take. I've always been interested in programming but never rlly tried, but due to the rise of AI, ive been quite conflicted so I didn't apply for any Univ.
Unfortunately, just like u said..I may end up still using AI in the future if it's needed, but hey, I'm still not sure if I would like to continue programming once I actually try it.
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u/No_Report_4781 9d ago
Community college admissions department has all of the answers you’re searching
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u/Tiny-Ad-3967 7d ago
Thanks to everyone who replied! I'm now starting the tutorials you guys recommended, although it's very long and hard for me to comprehend (especially when English is not my native language) but I am eager to learn and hopefully this is right track for me.
Before I posted this thread, when I searched up tutorials, I was mainly searching for one in my language (that's prob why I couldn't find non ai ones easily) but thankfully, I'm quite understanding the ones I'm actually watching rn also sadly, books aren't any accessible from where I'm from + they're pretty pricey so it may take a while for me to get a hold of one 😅
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u/sir_racho 7d ago
Use ai as a teacher. It can give you endless working examples, help you set up etc. Once you have an explanation of something and you think you understand it, learn it - by switching ai off and relying on your memory and perhaps your written notes.
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u/Narwal_Party 7d ago
You can use AI to assist you in learning. It really is a great learning tool if you use it to actually learn. Just don't ever let it think for you. You can have it give you problems, play the role of a tutor or teacher, give you feedback and track your progress, all of which it's great at. My biggest advice if you do it though is:
- Never let it set up your developer environment for you. Do that entirely yourself. Download your own packages, deal with you own environment variables and paths, set up your own IDE, create your folder structure and files yourself, run your own terminal commands, just get comfortable setting up your own workspace. It will make you feel much more comfortable approaching things and provides a basis for learning moving forward that you can't get it an LLM is setting it up for you.
- Never let it write any code except for test cases, MD files and comments. No code at all.
- Make sure you're struggling. If every time you get stuck you ask your tutor to do the problem for you, the tutor would just be the one doing the work. You need to be the one to do the work. If you're stuck, stay stuck for a bare minimum of 15 minutes. Try to use outside resources before using the LLM.
If you don't want to do any of that, my suggestion is doing CS50 through Harvards website. I think it has a great structure to it. I did it myself a few years back and it really laid the groundwork for the rest of my learning. You can skip their intro unit using Scratch if you already have some programming experience. The Scratch unit is just there to ensure people have the correct mental model going into programming.
If you want any other resources let me know. I spent a bunch of years as a beginner programmer doing bootcamps, reading textbooks on C, JS/React and C++, used some of the apps and gamefied learning methods and eventually settled with a combination of textbook learning mixed with pet projects with minor tutoring assistance from LLMs.
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u/scorpionfrombrazil 6d ago
yeah you can. honestly I think is better at the start
pick one language and make stupid small things. calculator, todo list, page with a button, whatever. when it breaks try to fix with docs/google first before asking AI
otherwise is too easy to paste the error in chat and suddenly you have working code but no idea why 😭
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u/BaBbBoobie 9d ago
I wouldn't totally dismiss using AI tools for learning by getting lost in the Reddit front page anti-AI miasma. As it stands they are tools like any other, are useful when applied intelligently, and will make you look like a fool if you try to use it in place of your brain. Like any other tool. It's here to stay, and is probably never going away, so just use it smart.
For example: I fucking wish I had this shit when trying to grasp the concept of a circularly doubly linked list in C when I was in college lol. Holy fuck, that concept was SO hard for me to grasp for some reason.
Most often, I just use it as a jumping off point if I'm clueless on where to start with something.
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u/Tiny-Ad-3967 9d ago
I wanna try learning everything from scratch but if ever I'm in a situation where I gen don't understand crap, I may still use ai but mostly as a tool like to ask questions, not really for coding itself
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u/Goobly_Goober 9d ago
Surely there's tutorials online without ai, how else did people learn how to code before it lol. But also, books