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would have used to debug this and to write it in the first place, then copy paste it from other sources, which might be outdated.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? 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. 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. 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"? 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. >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. 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.... 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.