Have you ever been able to code in the first place?
3 pointsby Haeuserschluchta month ago4 comments
  • isaacistomin17 days ago
    You were able to code. A lot of what you describe was never “writing code,” it was wrestling with entropy: build tools, dependencies, stale repos, vague errors.

    AI mostly speeds up the googling + trial-and-error loop. The parts that still separate “I can code” from “I can get something to run” are knowing what you actually want (edge cases, failure modes), and being able to sanity-check it when it’s wrong in a subtle way. If you can explain why it works when it works, and how it fails when it fails, you’re still coding — the tool just writes more of the boring parts.

  • AnimalMuppeta month ago
    You literally wrote things, things that worked, in assembly, and you're wondering if you were ever able to code? You're being way too hard on yourself.

    Although... "coding" originally meant doing what an assembler does - translating mnemonics into binary (or octal or hex) instructions, literally encoding the instructions. So by the original standards, if you're using even an assembler, then no, you're not.

    But definitions change over time. By current standards, from what you said, you definitely are able to code.

    • Haeuserschluchta month ago
      Thank you for your compassion, I really appreciate that.

      Yet it is not so much about downplaying myself than rather thinking about whether what I did was useful, even necessary. Is there inherent intellectual value in fixing dependency issues? Or is the real value in the actual idea? In the perfect description of the problem? Basically the antithesis to the old-age statement of "Ideas are worth nothing, execution is what counts"?

      • AnimalMuppeta month ago
        Don't judge execution pre-2020 (or thereabouts) by execution in 2026. What you did may not be necessary if you were doing it today. But you were doing it then, not now, and then it was necessary in order to be able to do it at all.
  • arter45a month ago
    >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?

    I think it's fair to say that you were able to code in the first place. Yes, you took more time, but if you were able to meet your deadlines and produce decent code, that's what matters.

    A more apt question could be: are you able to code right now? Challenge yourself to a small project, maybe in a weekend at most. Do not use AI tools at all. If you can write a small project in the language you are most familiar with, you can still code, even if you need 5x more time.

  • chairmanstevea month ago
    Has anyone ever paid you to write code? Are there lots of people using programs you wrote?

    If the anwser to both questions is no, then you probably never could code....

    • Haeuserschluchta month ago
      That is not conclusive to being able to code. If you don't put yourself out there and your code for judgement, a lack of occupation is no rebuttal of ability.

      But if you generalize this by asking, isn't code just a set of descriptions, have you written a tutorial and people used that? Then I would say, yes.

      Of if you share some snippet and 1000 people see that and some upvote, are you able to code? Also refer to my other replies in this thread for clarification.