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What about people who don't have access to a mentor? If not AI then what is their option? Is doing tutorials on your own a good way to learn?

sho_hn 2y ago
Not sure! My own path was very mentor-dependent. Participating in open source communities worked for me to find my original mentors as well. The other participants are incentivized to mentor/coach because the main thing you're bringing is time and motivation--and if they can teach you what you need to know to come back with better output while requiring less handholding down the road, their project wins. It's not for everyone because open source tends to require you to have the personality to self-select goals. Outside of more explicit mentor relationships, the projects aren't set up to provide you with a structured curriculum or distribute tasks. But if you can think of something you want to get done or attempt in a project, chances are you'll get a lot of helping hands and eager teachers along the way.
meindnoch 2y ago
Write something on your own. When stuck, consult the docs, Google the error message, and ask on StackOverflow (in this order). There's no royal road to learning.
exe34 2y ago
Failing for a bit, thinking hard and then somehow getting to the answer - for me it was usually tutorials, asking on stackoverflow/forums, finding a random example on some webpage. The fastest way for me to learn something new is to find working code or code that I can kick for a bit until it compiles/runs. Often I'll comment out everything and make it print hello world, and then from there try to figure out what the essential bits I need to bring back in, or simplify/mock, etc, until it works again. I learn a lot more by forming a hypothesis "to make it do this, I need that bit of code, which needs that other bit that looks like it's just preparing this/that object" - and the hypothesis gets tested every time I try to compile/run. Nowadays I might paste the error into chatgpt and it'll say something that will lead me a step or two closer to figuring out what's going on.
- Eisenstein 2y ago
  Why is modifying working code you didn't write better than having an AI help write code with you? Is it that the modified code doesn't run until you fix it? It still bypasses the 'hard won effort' criteria though?
  - exe34 2y ago
    I forgot to say, the aim is usually to integrate it into a bigger project that I'm writing by myself. The working code is usually for interfacing to libraries I didn't write - I could spend a year reading every line of code for a given library and understanding everything it does, and then realise it doesn't do what I want. The working code is to see what it can do first, or to kick it closer to what I want - only when I know it can do it will I spend the time to fully understand what's going on. Otherwise a hundred lifetimes wouldn't be enough to go through the amount freely available crapware out there.
nkrisc 2y ago
So, so, so many people have learnt to code on their own without a mentor. It requires a strong desire to learn and perseverance but it’s absolutely possible.
- saalweachter 2y ago
  That you can learn so much about programming from books and open source and trial and error has made it a refuge for people with extreme social anxiety, for whom "bothering" a mentor with their questions would be unthinkable.
skydhash 2y ago
Mostly by reading a good book to get the fundamentals down, then taking on a project to apply the knowledge and supplement the gap with online ressource. There are good books and nice open source projects out there. You can get far with these by just studying them with determination. Later you can go on the theoretical and philosophical part of the field.
- Kye 2y ago
  How do you know what a good book is? I've seen recommendations in fields I'm knowledgeable about that were hot garbage. Those were recommendations by reputed people for reputed authors. I don't know how a beginner is supposed to start without trying a few and learning some bad habits.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    If you're a beginner, almost any book by a reputable publisher is good. The controversial ideas start at the upper intermediary or advanced level. No beginner knows enough to argue about clean code or the gang of four book.
namaria 2y ago
There is no 'learning' in the abstract. You learn something. Doing tutorials teach you how to do the thing you do in them. It all comes down to what you wanna learn. If you want to acquire skills doing the things you can ask AI to do, probably a bad idea to use them. If you want to learn some pointers on a field you don't even know what key words are relevant to take to a library, LLMs can help a lot. If you wanna learn complex context dependent professional skills, I don't think there's an alternative to an experienced mentor.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

sho_hn 2y ago

Not sure! My own path was very mentor-dependent. Participating in open source communities worked for me to find my original mentors as well. The other participants are incentivized to mentor/coach because the main thing you're bringing is time and motivation--and if they can teach you what you need to know to come back with better output while requiring less handholding down the road, their project wins. It's not for everyone because open source tends to require you to have the personality to self-select goals. Outside of more explicit mentor relationships, the projects aren't set up to provide you with a structured curriculum or distribute tasks. But if you can think of something you want to get done or attempt in a project, chances are you'll get a lot of helping hands and eager teachers along the way.

meindnoch 2y ago

Write something on your own. When stuck, consult the docs, Google the error message, and ask on StackOverflow (in this order). There's no royal road to learning.

exe34 2y ago

Failing for a bit, thinking hard and then somehow getting to the answer - for me it was usually tutorials, asking on stackoverflow/forums, finding a random example on some webpage. The fastest way for me to learn something new is to find working code or code that I can kick for a bit until it compiles/runs. Often I'll comment out everything and make it print hello world, and then from there try to figure out what the essential bits I need to bring back in, or simplify/mock, etc, until it works again. I learn a lot more by forming a hypothesis "to make it do this, I need that bit of code, which needs that other bit that looks like it's just preparing this/that object" - and the hypothesis gets tested every time I try to compile/run. Nowadays I might paste the error into chatgpt and it'll say something that will lead me a step or two closer to figuring out what's going on.

Eisenstein 2y ago
Why is modifying working code you didn't write better than having an AI help write code with you? Is it that the modified code doesn't run until you fix it? It still bypasses the 'hard won effort' criteria though?
- exe34 2y ago
  I forgot to say, the aim is usually to integrate it into a bigger project that I'm writing by myself. The working code is usually for interfacing to libraries I didn't write - I could spend a year reading every line of code for a given library and understanding everything it does, and then realise it doesn't do what I want. The working code is to see what it can do first, or to kick it closer to what I want - only when I know it can do it will I spend the time to fully understand what's going on. Otherwise a hundred lifetimes wouldn't be enough to go through the amount freely available crapware out there.

nkrisc 2y ago

So, so, so many people have learnt to code on their own without a mentor. It requires a strong desire to learn and perseverance but it’s absolutely possible.

saalweachter 2y ago
That you can learn so much about programming from books and open source and trial and error has made it a refuge for people with extreme social anxiety, for whom "bothering" a mentor with their questions would be unthinkable.

skydhash 2y ago

Mostly by reading a good book to get the fundamentals down, then taking on a project to apply the knowledge and supplement the gap with online ressource. There are good books and nice open source projects out there. You can get far with these by just studying them with determination. Later you can go on the theoretical and philosophical part of the field.

Kye 2y ago
How do you know what a good book is? I've seen recommendations in fields I'm knowledgeable about that were hot garbage. Those were recommendations by reputed people for reputed authors. I don't know how a beginner is supposed to start without trying a few and learning some bad habits.
- skydhash 2y ago
  If you're a beginner, almost any book by a reputable publisher is good. The controversial ideas start at the upper intermediary or advanced level. No beginner knows enough to argue about clean code or the gang of four book.

namaria 2y ago

There is no 'learning' in the abstract. You learn something. Doing tutorials teach you how to do the thing you do in them. It all comes down to what you wanna learn. If you want to acquire skills doing the things you can ask AI to do, probably a bad idea to use them. If you want to learn some pointers on a field you don't even know what key words are relevant to take to a library, LLMs can help a lot. If you wanna learn complex context dependent professional skills, I don't think there's an alternative to an experienced mentor.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]