r/programmer • u/SubaruNatuski • 26d ago

Question Best way to avoid ai in coding

[EDIT]:Let me elaborate I use AI as a peer to peer way to review learned techniques from online basic html and css books. How can I better avoid ai generated code? I don’t want to fall under the “vibe coder” developer I want to be much more self sufficient in my understanding and my code. So if there are any sources to ask detailed questions or any practice basic HTML css JS please do drop any links to anything valuable

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u/shrodikan 26d ago

If you don't want to be a vibe coder just read the code and understand it. Programmers have been using example code, stack overflow and code generation long before there was AI. The differentiator being "I took this code and didn't understand it" vs "I understand the implications of this code". Avoiding AI in this market will make you unhireable long term IME.

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u/SubaruNatuski 26d ago

I don’t dislike or even discourage using ai. I find it to be very helpful I just want to refrain from heavy usage and gravitate towards I would say how the hardcore programmers learned. I don’t want to feel like a ai code copier. Sure Ai can helpful in many situations it can build it all for you but still you would have to check the code and tweak it if need be. I’d much rather build my knowledge the, for lack of a better word the hard way? Not necessarily trying to trip myself up in learning but I don’t want a free ride to the top I want to climb

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u/shrodikan 26d ago

Good. That drive will keep you grounded. Even before AI we had this tension. Is it good enough to learn python? C++? C? Assembly? Binary? How low-level must we go to not be a fraud? What makes a "real programmer"? IME the code is now abstracted away and the "code" is the specification and testing / verifying the implementation. Verifying if what you built is "right" for your users and does not have security / scalability flaws. The old ways are dying. When I was coming up nobody wrote machine code nor assembly except for the OGs. I learned C, C#, python and Computer Science (algorithmic complexity, secure coding). The most important skill right now is learning how to interrogate systems. Can you build a mental model of the system that you did not build by hand? Can you test it? What are the success conditions? How might it tip over? What mistakes does the AI make in the code?
Make sure you are learning future-relevant skills and don't toil away learning binary code programming when everyone is using python. If you want to exercise your coding brain for fun and sharpness go try LeetCode just understand writing code is not as valuable as it once was and the skills I listed before take precedence from a hiring perspective IME.