Is there anybody out there who still wants to learn programming by hand?

[drwho@masto.hackers.town]

@darthnull @mttaggart Gotcha. That was a serious question, by the way, and your answer was equally serious and helpful.

And, agreed.

[glitterbean@wehavecookies.social]

@mttaggart Python really changed my life. Nothing can replace that kind of detailed understanding of language.

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

@glitterbean Mine too!

[glitterbean@wehavecookies.social]

@mttaggart And also if you already know how the spacing is supposed to be as well as the syntax then if you do use an AI agent to help optimize your code you know exactly what prompts to use like a Jedi Master.

[argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org]

@d_rift

Good. That's where the true power lies.

If you vibe code, you're only as good as your bot, and you can only write what your bot knows how to write.

If you write the code yourself, you can do *anything*.

@mttaggart

[argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org]

@darthnull

Fun fact: you totally can write CGI scripts in Rust. I know because I recently did!

You don't even need a library. Everything is pre-parsed and stuffed into environment variables for you by the web server.

And, well, it's Rust. It starts up fast. So that shaves off a bunch of the performance overhead that CGI usually suffers from. It's still slow, but a great deal less so than your average CGI script.

@drwho @mttaggart

[argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org]

@mainec

Especially if you want to do graphics programming, like for game development. To do that, you need to know your trigonometry and whatnot.

@meltedcheese @mttaggart

[cyanautik@infosec.exchange]

@mttaggart
I did. or wanted to & scripting refresher, but the previous 4 years has kicked my ass

[sten@chaos.social]

@mttaggart I've never used AI to write my programs for me. The point for me is the learning, not the finished product. "By hand" is the only way I know how. I realise that I'm in a privileged position this way.

[aanee@mastodon.online]

@mttaggart Not really, but learning computers and communication technology gets you exposed to a lot of it. So it just kind of snook in and now I hate Java(Script), love Erlang and think LLMs are brain cancer.

[sparklepanic@infosec.exchange]

@mttaggart as a healthcare professional, non-programmer, linux user, i absolutely want to learn C and Python the hard way so i can write software and eventually contribute slop-free code to open source projects that are committed to human written projects

im getting started with "Learn C Programming and OOP with Dr. Chuck [feat. classic book by Kernighan and Ritchie]" on YouTube, and the books "Effective C" and "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python"

[pirategoddess@social.vivaldi.net]

@mttaggart TBH I still use AI for some coding projects, but I really only like doing it when I know what it's doing — which requires learning programming by hand. It just feels so much more fulfilling if you know what you're doing!

[snoopj@hachyderm.io]

@sparklepanic @mttaggart @glyph Al's book is great, you will be served well by it. And learning with Al is way the hell better than learning with "AI"

[sten@chaos.social]

@sparklepanic @mttaggart Kudos for wanting to really learn how to program. Effective C is an excellent book, but it's not an introduction, so if you read something there that you don't immediately understand, just give it some time, it'll make sense eventually

[steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co]

@sparklepanic @mttaggart Excellent choices!

[doragasu@mastodon.sdf.org]

@sparklepanic @mttaggart It's a hard road, but that's the only one that will allow you to understand and own your code. Congrats for choosing the hard but wise road!

[niels@social.data.coop]

@mttaggart