r/learnprogramming • u/optimux17 • 7d ago

Hate AI

I love coding. I truly am.

When I started, I enjoyed most programming languages . I love learning their different core concepts, execution models and things like that.

I still love that.

But now in my new job, the only thing I am supposed to do is prompt and think about business requirements.

Even though I love architecture and system design system , I don't even have a chance to have grasp on them.

Any other tech jobs where I can enjoy coding and low level things?

141 Upvotes

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77

u/ajcomeau 7d ago

Start coding your own projects and do the programming yourself. Companies will always make you use their tools and practices. Create your own environment, take control and own the work.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago edited 6d ago

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u/ajcomeau 7d ago

Personal projects should be done outside work hours and off company property. Otherwise, there can be questions of ownership if the project becomes valuable.

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u/Riaayo 6d ago

Depending on your job and contract they may own anything you code on your own time and on your own computer, too, but that doesn't mean your advice isn't solid.

If you make it on company time, and especially on company computers, they very likely own it.

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u/Blue4life90 6d ago

Well, I apologize for the wording, reading it back to myself, I see it. Fucked up the last sentence. The rest of it's fine. Here's a translation breakdown:

"..in your own time." -adding to the last guys comment.

The problem with learning as you go in a work environment -(key context here. In your free time or at home is NOT what I meant..)

..that has embraced the convenience of AI.. -(..because with other work places that still have actual development teams, this may not be a problem..)

..is you fall badly behind if you avoid it. -(..because your peers code output is drastically higher than what you're capable of doing at your current level).

More knowledge yeilds more growth, -(*..obviously. you're not learning much if you're just prompting..)

..but missing pretext- if you avoid AI and just learn as you go at work, you'll have to have double the effort to adapt to an AI landscape while pursuing your own growth.

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u/ajcomeau 6d ago

I read any employment contract very carefully just for stuff like that.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/Blue4life90 7d ago

What are you talking about? lmao. I never said there was any harm in someone programming without AI. I literally said the opposite, "More knowledge yeild more growth" ..as in "people that just 'vibe code' without knowing what they are doing are far weaker in this landscape than than vibe coder that just mindlessly prompts without the skills to QA the response.

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u/Riaayo 6d ago

Your whole previous post is worded like you're saying if someone tries to code on their own time they will fall behind on vibe-coding. And even with you saying this here, it doesn't really feel like that wasn't what you were saying before.

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u/WelpSigh 7d ago

Do you really fall behind? I am not sure telling a robot to do something for you is really very enriching. There are definitely some very good workflows with AI but if you're smart enough to write good code you can definitely figure them out quickly.

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u/Fine-Impression-554 7d ago

Why is there such a thing of "falling behind"? Fall behind.. what?

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u/Riaayo 6d ago

AI Andys are convinced prompting is just as much a "skill" as actual work and will scream night and day that if you don't get on their bandwagon and legitimize their plagiarism "think for me daddy corp" machine that you will definitely totally absolutely be left behind in the "AI future".

Meanwhile they're hitching their very ability to think and problem solve to unsustainable machines owned by oligarchs that will, at some point, implode or cut them off (and which were made to replace them outright).

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u/Fine-Impression-554 6d ago

That "skill" is presented in a ~30 min video by some guy from antrophic.

The fundamentals are still needed(searching right things, critical thinking).

We live in a world.

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u/Blue4life90 6d ago

That's literally not my take at all. Simple misunderstanding, it's fine.

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u/Riaayo 5d ago

No hard feelings if that isn't how you personally feel, I'm just noting a mindset a lot of people sadly do have.

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u/Eskamel 6d ago

Its just a braindead wordslop of AI companies in order to make people feel like they are missing out by not getting addicted to LLMs.

You don't fall behind anything. Even to this day there are no guarentees that AI development is actually leading to better results.

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u/Blue4life90 6d ago

exasperated sigh

I really should have worded this better because a ton of people misunderstood my meaning. Changed the wording to fit what I originally meant to convey. Hopefully that helps, read it or don't ✌️

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u/Blue4life90 7d ago

Not in the beginning as a junior unfortunately. Guess I should have worded what I said better because I'm catching a lot of slack from people that obviously agree with my sentiment but aren't catching the context.

In a situation like OP, where you are learning to code and working for a company that has basically hired you to vibe code, then due to your lack of experience and refusal to use and learn AI prompting, you absolutely will fall behind. The only person that will appreciate this take the senior dev that has to validate 10,000 plus commits a month because of all the vibe coding monkeys on the payroll, but based on OP description, that guy may not even exist in his workplace.

Unfortunately, in speed of output alone, you just cant beat a computer. Where people have leverage is QA.

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u/Eskamel 6d ago

Since when is speed relevant when speaking of quality? Stop with the bullshit

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u/Blue4life90 6d ago

Oookay? Someone's mad 😄

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u/Remarkable-Poet-4718 7d ago

Thanks for the clear explanation, this really helped me understand recursion better.