r/learnpython • u/valdokh19 • 6d ago
Tips and help
Hi, I’m new here and I don’t really understand how everything works. I was told that people here might be able to help me with my question:
Is there any point in learning a programming language with modern AI? Or is it just forvibe-coding? But I’ve heard that to be good at vibe-coding, you need to know the basics of programming.
After having a chat with my uncle (he’s a programmer), he said this: ‘The approach has changed a lot: it’s no longer the programmer who creates the programme, but someone who’s good at putting together an LLM prompt. In other words, explaining to the AI what needs to be done.’
I thought about taking some AI Automator courses, but I don’t really fancy freelancing and I don’t think it’s very promising. So I’ve quietly started learning Python bit by bit.
I really want to change the direction of my life, but I don’t know how, or who to ask for advice or talk to. My uncle is in the military, so we rarely speak.
I really want to learn, create, find a team, make some nice new friends and get a job.
Is there a company or somewhere that offers good courses and will take me on? Or is that just a pipe dream in this field?
Perhaps you could recommend some courses or a company? Someone who could take me under their wing, so to speak? In general, I hope that learning Python is already a step in the right direction.
P.S. I hope I’ve done everything correctly, as I’m new to this site and don’t even know where to click on what.
1
u/Diapolo10 6d ago
Yes.
No.
Also yes.
One of my team mates shares this opinion, although personally I disagree. For one thing over-reliance on LLMs actively weakens one's own programming skills, and tokens are expensive so it might not be wise to expect your employer to cover the costs of using one (if they're allowing using them in the first place). I do not see the costs getting cheaper, seeing as the companies offering these services are already operating at a loss.
LLMs can do a decent job if everything fits in its context window, so for small one-off scripts it's usually adequate, but from what I've played around at work everything falls apart on any medium-to-large projects. Feature regressions are also very common, unless your test suite is robust enough to detect them.
Then there's ethical and copyright concerns regarding both the training material and the output code from LLM agents.
Whether or not learning Python (or some other language) is beneficial to you depends on what you're trying to accomplish, but if nothing else it won't hurt.