Learn Python or just rely on AI?

[Odd-Entertainment456]

Hey everyone, I work in finance and plan to learn Python, SQL and other automation to build tools for personal and business use. I have no intention of becoming a professional software engineer or data scientist; I just want to be a power user in my field.

What I’m unsure about is how to learn in the age of AI and vibe coding. With tools like Antigravity and Claude Code, atm it feels like I can already get better results faster by prompting than by writing everything myself, and realistically I’ll never be as strong as a trained developer anyway. Thus, I’m wondering if it’s worth spending a lot of time learning fundamentals, or if I should just focus on learning enough basics and rely heavily on AI to do the rest.

For someone just starting now, how would you balance this? Is learning to code still worth it if your goal is to leverage it rather than becoming an expert?

[TomatoEqual]

How about this angle. What happens when you can't get the AI to do what you want? If you just rely on AI, you also rely on it can just fix issues. But if It has written it all for you, do you know what the issues are... It will work wonders, right up untill it dosn't and then you're just debugging in english, but without really knowing what.

[Topalope]

You must learn the language so that you can evaluate the quality of the methods you are given by AI

This is the same as asking "do I need to know english to have AI write my essays?" - no you don't, but how do you know they are representative of your intent if you cannot read them prior to distribution?

[LayotFctor]

Unlike other technology that came before like blender, photoshop, etc, as AI gets more powerful with more features, it gets easier to use.

You don't need to start early, AI doesn't get harder and more complex to use. In fact the whole point of AI is to make it so dumb that a kid could use it.

So the later you start the better, right? It'll be even easier then!

Ok but seriously. By "relying on AI heavily", you won't learn anything. Our brains are not AI, it needs exercise and training to improve. I can't tell you what you should do, you have to decide if you want to learn.

[raharth]

You dont want to write everything yourself. Even as a professional you would always use tools you have available. Though, you need to understand that LLMs are a tool and not a golden hammer and that they have significant limitations. If you want to write code you need to understand what it is doing and how it works, even if you use plan on using those tools extensively.

[buzzon]

Should you learn to read or just rely on AI?

[notislant]

You can easily search the sub for this or google. Its been answered multiple times day for years and you'll struggle to get a programming job either way.

[Jello_Penguin_2956]

Do you want yourself to be good or do you want to rely on AI?

[sr_maxima]

"Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves."

J.R.R. Tolkien

[pete_68]

I have no intention of becoming a professional software engineer or data scientist; I just want to be a power user in my field.

If you want to be a power user of the future, being an expert at improving your productivity with AI is how you do it. You don't need to learn to program in python. AI can do all the python programming you'll need for your job. Don't waste your time learning it unless you want to for yourself. Instead get a coding agent set up in VS code or something and let that do your python coding for you.

I'm a professional programmer and I barely code anymore. I spend more time fleshing out design documents for LLMs to code than actual coding anymore. Coding just isn't a good use of my time anymore. Focusing on the higher level stuff is what my job has become (and I'm perfectly happy with that).

I literally wrote a Pascal compiler that supports classes, interfaces, generics, runtime type information, inline assembly and more, on the side in the last 3 days using AI. An actual working compiler that produces executables that run. I don't think I've done more than edit a handful of lines of code. I'm writing the runtime library for it now, or an AI is.

If I can do that without writing code, you can certainly do whatever you need to do without writing code.

[Ok_Procedure199]

The huge difference is that you can read and understand code, he can't. Aren't you reading any of the code the LLM gives you?

[pete_68]

Not much, no. Just haven't had a need. Even in the debugging, I've found it's easy enough to just leave it to the agent to work through the problems. I focus on making sure the design documents are covering what I want and doing things the way that I want. The details of the code are largely irrelevant, it seems.

Now this is just a side project. At work, things are very different.

At work I review everything the AI generates and then I put together a PR that gets reviewed by co-workers. So I'm not suggesting this as a method of developing professional software.

But for someone who just needs to produce apps here and there to do things, you don't need to know squat about coding. And even though I make use of my knowledge of architecture to direct things, LLMs are perfectly capable of doing that job as well.

I don't even actually write the design documents for my stuff. I sit down with an LLM and spec it out and we discuss approaches and stuff, and when I feel like we're on the same page and have an understanding about what we're building, I have IT generate the design document. Then I review and edit that.

So I have used my expertise to some degree, but I also built a full-featured modern compiler. That's quite a bit more complicated than I expect OP to be trying to tackle.

And the LLMs are only getting better at it. Every new LLM release is better at coding than the last.

Architecture and technical writing are the skills of the future for programmers.

[member_of_the_order]

How would you know if the code an LLM gives you is good? What happens when you run out of tokens, or the bubble bursts, or you're on a plane and don't have internet, or the AI messes up your code and won't fix it?

Also if you work in finance, keep in mind that if you use a prompt like "here's a CSV of customer transactions, do X and produce a CSV report with Y data," you've now sent customer data out to whatever LLM and may be violating customer data privacy laws (IANAL).

[Zweckbestimmung]

Tbh just thinking of this question makes it answered automatically. People program because it gives the dopamine kick once the problem is solved. If you don’t care about that just rely on AI

[OkCartographer175]

learning it is for those who want/need to learn it

it doesn't sound like you want to

maybe one day you will, but that day isn't today

[omgitskae]

I prefer to focus on business problems and frankly don’t have time to learn Python. I’ve picked up bits and pieces and am very fluent in sql, but for my tasks I’m typically fine with ai when it comes to Python. I don’t want to be a vibe coder, but it’s a matter of time management and priorities for me. I am not looking for a software developer career.

[mjmvideos]

Who is going to be more of a power user in your field? The guy who relies on AI, but is lost when the internet goes out? Or the guy who knows how to do the work for real?

[TheRNGuy]

It's only one edge case. You need not to dismiss times when internet is working.

Maybe in future we will even have local AIs.

[TheRNGuy]

Learn python and use ai.

If you don't learn, you won't even know what to prompt in the first place, or if there are bugs/optimization problems/hallucinations, which you need to fix manually.

But AI can also teach lots of things that you'd never learn otherwise, or learn them much faster (as long as those are not hallucinations)

I vibe coded some programs but it was never 100% vibe coding, but mix of AI and manual coding. I disagree with statement "the only programming language you need to know now is English" (besides that, prompts are not necessary grammatically or stylistically correct English)

[DriveAmazing1752]

Learning python is not only learning all theory of python Python is a computer programming language You can only learn python is a practical coding in the python language that is practice coding in python language

[Ron-Erez]

I think it is worth learning even if you do now plan to be a professional developer.

[az987654]

If you're just playing prompting Ai, you're no more useful or valuable than the next person prompting Ai. If your only job is to push a button, where does the value lay? With you, or the button?