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Can't start with programming except being into computer science (suppo.fi)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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Ive been interested in computers for 4 years or so. And I love computer science concepts and free software. I know design difference between X11 and Wayland protocols, garbage collectors and other random facts i remembered.

But i have never done any serious programming. Only some little attempts at python, godot, c++, kotlin and so on. Idk why but when i have to do the actual programming i just dont know how, documentation feels unclear and those youtube programming courses also do not ensentivize it.

If someone here had similar problem, how did you solve it?

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[–] 1 point 1 week ago (3 children)

Question regarding the use of LLMs, what are your thoughts of using prompts that discourage it from providing code and just being there to guide when you're going tremendously off the beaten path? For example, asking for the documentation of what you're trying to achieve and to just nudge you in the right direction? Recently I started meeting with tutors and found that every single one has been trying to push me to use an LLM which really defeats the purpose of tutoring. I'm getting discouraged and thinking this might be the new norm for teaching.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

    Personally, LLMs are too often wrong and overly confident to be useful for me. Plus, unless you're running a local model, yet another subscription is not fun, especially by the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic. And you have all the ethical issues with LLMs that I'm sure you've heard about already.

    It would be much better if you used the vast swath of online resources we are very lucky to have nowadays, don't take it for granted as the internet becomes increasingly saturated with low-effort LLM generated garbage.

    Again, the only scenario where LLMs are potentially useful is translation in my opinion, and even then, you have to mindful it is often pretty wrong.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago* (1 child)

    Appreciate the insight. It's becoming pretty disheartening to work directly with a knowledgeable person only to hear "have you tried ChatGPT?". The whole point is to be mentored and not have questions rerouted to something that's generally wrong a vast majority of the time, and that's not even factoring in all the unethical uses of AI.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    It's not wrong the vast majority of the time. In fact, it's petty damn good at explaining principles and giving feedback on code, but it doesn't read minds, and so it can be wrong sometimes. It sometimes tells you you're wrong while explaining the exact same thing you just told it back to it.

    People can be wrong, too. I just saw a teacher explain something wrong in my daughter's online school video. She had the right answer but explained it wrong and confused my daughter. I think it's fine to prefer human assistance, but AI is really good at having infinite patience and stepping back and covering fundamentals when you aren't ready to understand a thing.

    My point is: however you find the answers you are seeking when confused, keep seeking. Keep asking questions. Keep experimenting.

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