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Have you ever been able to code in the first place?

Article news.ycombinator.com

Have you ever been able to code in the first place?

Have you ever been able to code in the first place?

It started like this. I programmed in Pascal when I was in school. I learned basic. I learned assembler. I literally assembled code. Sometimes I thought it out, planned it, and created for that time quite elaborate code, controlling a panoramic head, for instance, things like that. So at this time, I was really proud of myself. I was good at this. I was getting better.

And fast forward to today, you have AI and vibe coding. Back in the day, often when I got an error message, I just looked on the internet and tried something out, did trial and error. After a while, it worked either with my own code or with code from a GitHub repository.

Today I don't even do that. All I do is I start the Gemini CLI and have it code for me. And then I watch some video unless it has some issues. I noticed that the code is better and it all comes down to good description of the problem.

I noticed the problems that I fought with for ages, that I spent hours with debugging and shit. It just created in 15 minutes. So I was wondering, was I even ever able to code? Or was it just a huge waste of time?

Because now I can see it from the outside and see the amount of time that I would have used to debug this and to write it in the first place, then copy paste it from other sources, which might be outdated. I would have done something for five days.

Partly I would be excited about this. Yes, sure, it's challenging your brain, but ultimately you have something and you're probably not even that excited about it.

Have you ever been really able to code? Or was it more like trying something, it doesn't really work, you ask in a forum like Stack Overflow, and if that still doesn't work, you just do something else?

I had Pascal in school, later at university Java for the first time. I programmed a little afterwards for Android, given that it was also Java. But often it was Stack Overflow here, Stack Overflow there, trying to match my source code with what I found online, looking at manuals or whatever. It was tedious. Just tedious.

Ultimately I had something that was fun for five minutes at best. Often I just wanted to see if I liked something, but for that I had to create a prototype. And this prototype didn’t work. It didn’t compile.

I saw some repository, wanted it to work, then there was a compilation error. This module was lacking. This dependency wasn’t there. All of this shit.

So I’m coming back to it. Was I ever able to code? Or what is the benchmark for coding? And is it really a disservice to my intellect if I stop doing that and just have AI create it?

There are changes all the time. Repositories are not up to date. Libraries don’t work with each other. One updates, the other doesn’t. Then you have to fix it. It’s depressing and annoying, and I don’t really see the drawback of doing it differently now.

If a repository doesn’t do what I want, I load it, start Gemini CLI, and have it corrected. Reverse engineering protocols or hardware, in my experience, is disgusting. Really hard and frustrating.

So what is your take on the whole situation?

Discussion 7 comments · 3 points · Haeuserschlucht · 2026-01-10
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