Are Coding Basics Still Relevant in the Age of AI?

Show Notes

Back in high school I learned QBASIC and Visual Basic
- Both of these technologies were outdated for the time (Visual Basic was still around, but we were using an older version)
- The point was to learn programming fundamentals - specifically thinking like a computer:
  - Breaking down big problems into smaller ones
  - Solving those small problems with common programming mechanics (ie variables for temp storage, arrays for lists, if/then for decision making, etc.)
  - By using older technology, we didn’t have any modern fluff, it was “as close to the basics as possible”
We make guides for web development, many of them are for basic coding skills
Are these coding guides still relevant?
- Modern web development is layers upon layers deep into other technologies outside HTML/CSS/JS - and even when vanilla is used, the languages are much more powerful than the basic fundamentals
  - This makes the “ladder” of learning super daunting from anyone all the way on the bottom “fundamental” rung - so should you even bother starting there?
- AI of course has disrupted this space greatly, it can code up apps and games with just a few prompts - even using advanced programming concepts - and it can explain the code it’s using as it goes - if you’re using AI should you start from the bottom?

Learning the basics allows you to read code, not just copy + paste
- Great for peer reviews
- Even if you use AI-generated code you’ll need to be able to “peer review” what it sends you if you want your code to be secure and production-ready
- You’ll be able to read new coding concepts (ie guides that have code snippets & examples)
There are still a lot of different technologies in web development (React, Svelte, Vue, etc.)
- Having a foundational knowledge of programming, and more specifically HTML/CSS/JS will still allow you to transfer between these technologies easier
Planning stages of projects can benefit greatly from someone that understands coding fundamentals and can talk “pseudo-code” (ie they’ll have an idea how to implement a feature as it’s requested without thinking about specific syntax and other noise)

AI can create advanced code for you in just a prompt or two, even if you have 0 coding knowledge… this is a brand new invention that has never existed before, the closest you could get was a Stack Overflow post after a google search
With a tool so powerful, it would be easy to skip over programming fundamentals altogether
The issue with this is that you’re essentially relying on the AI to get everything right, and you’ll have no way to tell what’s going on one way or the other
But this begs the question, should we be starting at the bottom? Or jumping in at a more advanced level, slowly learning as we go?
- Essentially using the AI to learn, and not just to code for you

Crossroads
- Gaining foundational knowledge is a slow process that can take even longer if the person learning isn’t computer literate
- Using an AI like ChatGPT is a consumer-friendly way to generate advanced code that works just like you’d expect, just by speaking English to it
New but not newbie
- If you’re not new to programming, but you’re brand new to a specific topic
  - Do you still start at the bottom and learn from there? Or do you have AI code it for you, and then slowly learn by “osmosis?”
What are we preaching in 2025?
- We’ve always preached that you learn the three pillars of web development - HTML/CSS/JS
- In 2025, what are we preaching?

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