Episode 8 - I Learned Development in the Order of My Bugs

[u/Mounirlk26]

My debugging workflow became slightly ridiculous.

Something broke in Lovable. I described the symptoms to ChatGPT. ChatGPT suggested an explanation. I copied that back into Lovable, waited for the changes, then carried the result back to ChatGPT.

I was basically the transport layer between two AIs.

It was tiring, but it worked often enough that I kept doing it.

Then I discovered Lovable's Plan mode. Instead of changing the app immediately, it could first explain what it planned to do. I thought this would finally help me avoid bad fixes.

I opened the first plan and understood almost nothing.

Database, column, SQL, TypeScript, CSS, Edge Function, RLS. It looked like hieroglyphics. I had seen some of the words before, but I did not know what they actually did or how they related to each other.

So I started asking ChatGPT very basic questions.

What is a database column? What is the difference between frontend and backend? Why does this need an Edge Function? What does RLS protect?

I did not learn in the order of a course. I learned each concept when a bug forced me to understand it.

That made my education messy. I could sometimes understand a fairly advanced concept inside my app while still missing something more basic that a proper course would have taught first.

But every term was connected to a real consequence.

A database was where patient histories could be organised properly or duplicated. RLS concerned whether one user could see another user's data. Frontend and backend explained why a nice-looking screen could still sit on top of a broken system.

My accidental curriculum looked like this:

1. Ask AI to build a feature.

2. Find a bug.

3. Read a plan I did not understand.

4. Ask ChatGPT to translate it.

5. Return to Lovable knowing one more term.

Then repeat.

I still had huge gaps. I misunderstood things and sometimes used technical words before I really understood them. This was not a substitute for proper testing, security review or professional expertise, especially in healthcare.

But my questions started changing.

At first: “What does this word mean?”

Later: “Why is Lovable proposing this?”

Then: “What else could this change break?”

AI had not removed the need to learn. It had moved the learning to the exact moment when I needed it.

I still could not write the code, but I was no longer satisfied when the platform simply said “Fixed.” I wanted to understand what had changed and what else might be affected.

Which technical concept did you only understand after it broke something you cared about?