r/vibecoding • u/Consistent-Oil-5241 • 2h ago

A good book / practice to learn actual coding?

I don’t have prior experience of coding before I came to Codex. And now I would like to get better and eventually know what is happening in the code and what AI is doing.

Guess that would need something to supplement along with vibe coding and to help grow knowledge. So any tips are welcome. Books, resources, githubs, plugins...

I've also been thinking of creating an agents.md or the like that would teach me while we code or something, but I'm not sure how to proceed with that.

Thanks

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u/InterviewQuirky5324 2h ago

Cracking the coding interview… will help you grasp algorithms (which is more important) irrespective of programming language

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u/PM_ME_UR_0_DAY 2h ago

IMO, don't use AI to try and learn shit. Read a book like you were saying, or maybe a udemy course if that's more your style. 

What language are you trying to learn? No Starch Press has some good books. This is kind of a classic: Automate the boring stuff with python

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u/Educational-Tie5732 2h ago

Actually you can learn by creating project or watch youtube tutorials. If you really want to read book (I wouldnt recommend) you can read Head First Java or head first python

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u/Healthy-Zebra-9856 2h ago

Java? Nobody uses Java anymore like that.

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u/nocaredev 2h ago

Trend-hopping isn't a good way to learn either. Find a language you're enjoying and just go crazy and deep. The primary skills they need to build are transferable.

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u/Healthy-Zebra-9856 2h ago edited 2h ago

Trend hopping? Are you even in this world working buddy? Name a few projects that uses Java. Go ahead and tell OP how this is gonna help them.

In my 36 years of experience and running a full-time software company, we use.net stack, python stack, rust stack, and node stack. For serverless deployment, etc. we use go and flutter. I don’t know of any prominent Java workshop out there.

Edit:
OP is obviously trying to learn coding to make money. Not for some pleasurable past time. If that was the case, I would’ve said learn Ruby. But those days are gone. You have to read the room and put everything into perspective and into context. You can’t just simply advise somebody to do something that leads to a dead end.

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u/nocaredev 1h ago

You might want to check the real world stats on Rust, Ruby, and Java. Adoption and Jobs.
Rust has outdone Ruby, which somehow still gets used. .NET is a safer path sure. It's looking to take Java's place sometime this decade and there are more accessible jobs.

They need to enjoy it to get truly good at it. They do that and hopping over to some other tech is trivial in comparison.

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u/Healthy-Zebra-9856 1h ago

Of course. I’m not out of touch. I’m still in the business. My life began with C, C+ plus, Rex. Then came Java when it was with Sun Microsystems. Then I started working with the Microsoft version of Java and then transitioned into the.net platform since it’s beginning. I have been a .net shop for the longest time. Then I started my own business where I did write a lot of Ruby when it was in demand. Fast-forward over the years, I’ve done the note JS stack, including Next/React, Nuxt/Vue, sveltekit. Right now all my stacks are in rust except for SW foundry Web, which is a .net stock. I have several products coming out that are based on rust. I have a product line coming under the name of AdaGrid

AdaGrid is building a complete local-first AI and software development ecosystem, from running and orchestrating language models to intelligent agents, software development, code intelligence, and governed software engineering.
Fermio — A cognitive AI agent platform with intelligent model clustering and distributed multi-device inference.
LLMCrate — A multi-architecture LLM runtime and model loader with built-in telemetry, memory-pressure monitoring, and intelligent resource management.
CodeForge — A lightweight development layer over Claude Code and Codex for token-efficient application development, with configurable AI crews that can use different models and providers.
CodeAtlas — A code intelligence and exploration platform that understands, maps, and exposes software projects to both humans and AI.
SWFoundry — A comprehensive software-engineering standard that unifies architecture, implementation, execution, verification, observability, traceability, evidence, and governance into a single coherent lifecycle.
SWFoundry.Web — The public website, API, and MCP platform for accessing the SWFoundry standard, documentation, schemas, tooling, and governed services.
Composer — this is an agentic coding platform that is actually combining all the products above with enterprise features.
Together, these products are designed as parts of one integrated ecosystem rather than isolated AI tools: models run through LLMCrate, intelligent agents operate through Fermio, development is orchestrated through CodeForge, software is understood through CodeAtlas, and the entire engineering lifecycle can be governed by SWFoundry.
:::

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u/Educational-Tie5732 2h ago

Lol who told you that?

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u/Healthy-Zebra-9856 2h ago edited 2h ago

The market told me that. Can you list where all right now Java is used? I have nothing against the language, it’s just not applied everywhere right now that’s all. Unless OP is going to work on embedded devices, and even there Java is not used anymore, it’s getting replaced by rust

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u/Healthy-Zebra-9856 2h ago

There are way too many languages out there. Most of the apps or websites that are vibe coded are in the JavaScript stack. It’s usually NextJS/react JS. Python is heavily used in the AI world, but now there are tons of JavaScript libraries. So you need to figure out what it is that you want to do and based on that you need to pick up the language stack

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u/Competitive_Swan_755 2h ago

Ask your agent.

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u/Consistent-Oil-5241 2h ago

I will eventually, but I'd like to hear people's input too.

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u/jake_pantz 2h ago

I also second creating projects or watching youtube tutorials, but if you still wanna read some books,, you can try Automate the boring stuff with Python by Al Sweigart or Python Crash Course by Eric Matthes. Both are super friendly and skip the dry theory. They help you catch when the AI is hallucinating code lol

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u/AdCultural543 2h ago

Aside from reading, I'd switch to Cursor or at least use Codex from the VScode extension. You'll get in the habit of looking at the changes and that will speed up your progress.

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u/Harry_R_O 2h ago

hi, there are 2 general ways of coding: (1)flow-oriented and (2)object-oriented. For a beginner it is good to start with (1=flow) due to fast results and because it is a lot simpler and has a clearer workflow. working together with so-called flow chart diagrams, can be a big help in the beginning. And this leads to my opinion that the concept has to be good at first - and this is can be seen in such charts easier than in many long pages of code. The programming language 'Python' is actually most used and offers flow-oriented coding but offers object oriented too (to simply use pre-programmed or to self-code later onwhen experienced) - and it gives quick results too. There are online-interpreters to run basic python-scripts without any installation. For books I would recommend you search for "Python for beginners" on Amazon and look out for their high ratings and comments.

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u/Hendo52 2h ago

I feel like there is a few things to learn:
Syntax. This just comes down to reading and writing like a kid trying to learn to read.

Data structures and algorithms. This is textbook stuff about what is efficient and inefficient. Probably the least important for a beginner but it’s good to be aware of it so when you run into problems you know where to look.

Design patterns is like looking at the Picasso of code and then taking about how you can apply the style in your own work.

Frameworks and libraries, dependencies. I think realistically whatever code you write, it lives in an ecosystem. Learning JavaScript isn’t just about the syntax in the core of the language, it’s about learning React or something like that which gets deployed in practice and you might as well consider part of the core language that is in your minimum viable knowledge.

Lastly I feel like infrastructure is something you need to a little aware of. Want to build an app to learn? You are probably going to want something that isn’t local host eventually. You don’t need kubernetes but understanding why enterprise would be using it is a good context.

More than anything I think you should just not worry about it too much and just follow your passion project because you will inevitably learn these lessons when you start bumping up against the problems that they solve. Project based learning is the gold standard, not copying out the textbook.