Learning to code is still worthwhile

dyauspitr

Only because the US government is putting a bar on how intelligent of a model they are willing to allow and it seems like we are already at it. China won’t stop though so it’s going to be months to a year before we get models where learning to code makes no sense.

wgbowley

Man, that makes coding tools, says you should learn to code lolz. I don't disagree. Just worth noting.

gonzalohm

Learning anything is worthwhile. Just because you code in Python it doesn't mean that knowing how instructions are processed in a CPU or the memory is managed is useless. The excuse that we don't need to know how things work because AI will take care of it is going to bite a lot of people on their asses

bix6

There’s always value in the fundamentals you just might not get paid for them.

OhSoHumble

> Code is a beautiful form of creative expression, as rich as literature or music Something I'm trying to do right now is to build something and avoid using LLMs to write any code. I still use it to consult. I'm writing a Dota2 tournament match aggregator in Elixir that takes tournament streams and chronologically orders them in a format that makes it easier to watch them sequentially since I find YouTube hard to use for ingesting series of videos. I'm building it because... I like programming. I like making things. I find that LLMs are making me intellectually lazy and making things with them feels unfulfilling. I want to build. It's human to want to build.

jdw64

Learning itself still has value. Just because my arms and legs are shorter than others doesn't mean I should cut them off. Just because an LLM can do most things better than I can doesn't mean I should stop learning. Also, whether the LLM's knowledge is suited for humans is a separate issue. This isn't limited to coding—all fields of study are ultimately humanity's process of understanding the world, and it's participating in that historical process that has been passed down from our ancestors. I think the idea that something has or doesn't have value just because an LLM exists is purely a capitalistic perspective. I sincerely question whether something that doesn't generate money in a capitalist sense is truly without value

preommr

The problem is that coding was sold as the pancea. If you were fired, "learn to code", if you're in prison, "learn to code", if you're in kindergarden, "learn to code". Even in this article, it's talking about how it's a good way to learn math and formal thinking. Yea, as an application. If you want to learn math, learn some basic fundamentals tied specifically to math, and then come apply it to code. Coding is like welding in that it's a useful skill, a craft unto itself, but also integral for modern day manufacturing that opens up a world of possibilities. You don't see welding being suggested as a form of excercise, or the ticket to being a multi-millionaire.

holtkam2

If you want to fully understand / contribute to / fully leverage the most powerful technology humanity has ever devised (AI), you must learn to read and write code. That’s the only reason anyone should need.

avaer

Those are not compelling arguments. If the best we've got for convincing people to learn to code is that it's like math notation (the most hated part of math for the uninitiated), or pretty like a violin (useless for a new grad), then coding is in serious trouble. IMO a better argument is it helps you "think like a computer". But if you wanted to learn that there are many video games I'd recommend mastering instead of learning to code. For most people "learn to code" is like telling programmers to "learn asm". (I've been coding ~30 years)

somesortofthing

I think pieces like this miss the forest for the trees. Software is the bottleneck for a vast array of economic activities. Attention from intelligent people is most of the rest. Both are mostly-commoditized already and are just waiting around for technological diffusion and the closing of the RSI loop. Unless you're doing so as a hobby with no expectation of returns, I'm not sure what, if anything, is worth learning anymore.

sublinear

I don't entirely disagree, but I absolutely hate these blog posts. They always miss the point entirely. It's been enough years of this that it seems like a deliberate muddying of waters. "Knowing how to code" has always been poorly defined and full of silly arguments. Nobody employs code monkeys. What matters more is that you understand how things work. There's zero progress on that with AI. LLMs might even be negative progress on education.

psadri

Learning to code = understanding a problem, breaking it down into small, manageable pieces, putting all the pieces back together. Debugging. Iterating towards better metrics, etc. All these are amazingly valuable skills/mindsets that can be highly portable to other "problem solving" domains.

wasting_time

The era of LLMs is similar to when Magic was discovered in the 1400s. The layperson may be able to get ahold of a spellbook, but without Understanding it comes with high risk of turning your niece into a frog. Whereas Wizards can cast increasingly powerful spells that build on each other, and make Art.

hahooh

it sounds like backing up any learning... not just coding

MrLeap

To create things via AI without being able to comprehend the output is to trust completely in the agent(s). Operating that way is more optimistic than experience has taught me to be.

p1necone

Anecdotally, the people who I know who were not particularly good developers pre-llms still manage to produce bad code even using flagship models now. I think having solid knowledge/understanding of good architecture and general practices is still crucial, and it's easy to forget that the foundational knowledge and instinct you take for granted now actually took a lot of time and effort to learn when you were less experienced.

adamddev1

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't AI agents replacing the coding mostly being done on the outer layers of development? I mean, end user applications, apps, dashboards, business applications? On this "outer crust" people can maybe tolerate things with 99% accuracy, or bloated code. A vibe coded app can be argued to be "good enough." (Even then, look at the disaster that Microsoft apps have become post AI adoption.) But people are still staying away from LLMs on the critical compilers, frameworks, tools and libraries that people need to really rely on. No one wants to build on code that is 99% accurate or bloated. No one wants to use an AI coded web browser. To really build good building materials, you need to code it and know what you're doing. Where is anybody even getting close to phasing out coding in those critical areas?

Rover222

"Code is a beautiful form of creative expression, as rich as literature or music" Um no, you've gone too far.

Dumblydorr

Thin post with more ads for their company than arguments. Many pursuits are worthwhile, yet almost no one does most pursuits. Coding is going to become a niche activity like portrait painting or making toys. It’s fun but there’s far cheaper easier ways to get a superior product.

librasteve

<<And finally, programming is simply fun. It's a joy. My calling in life is to spread the joy of programming,>> must be a Raku coder -Ofun