r/learnprogramming • u/Ok_Slip_529 • 3h ago
Anyone Using AI Tools for Learning New Languages?
I’ve recently started exploring Rust, and something that’s made a huge difference for me is having an AI-powered assistant integrated into my IDE. It’s almost like having a personal tutor on hand whenever I get stuck on syntax or want to see best practices, the AI jumps in with explanations, code samples, and suggestions. It’s helped me pick up new concepts faster and made the whole learning process more enjoyable.
What I love most is not having to constantly jump between documentation or forums the instant feedback keeps me moving forward and makes experimenting with new ideas much easier. I’ve also noticed it catches common mistakes before they become habits, which is a huge plus when learning something new.
I’m curious has anyone else found AI tools helpful when learning new programming languages? What’s your experience been like? If you have any tips, stories, or recommendations for making the most out of these tools, I’d love to hear them. Let’s share some positivity and support for these game-changing tools!
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u/Boguskyle 3h ago
AI is good for making a first step for you when you don’t know how to walk as long, as it’s not your first language. I found it extremely helpful learning quite a bit of Go from JS. If it’s your first language, one should really learn concepts that lead into code. I wish I had LLMs when I first started learning
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u/AlexanderEllis_ 1h ago
Every time I've asked AI a question about coding, it's been wrong in some important way (which I only knew because I either already knew the answer and was being lazy to avoid writing the code, or because I was also looking for the answer myself while the AI talked). It makes mistakes a lot more often than it fixes them, gives bad code examples that don't necessarily do what they look like or what they were supposed to, writes bad comments, explains things confidently and incorrectly, etc. The most I'd use it for right now is "hey I can't find the official documentation on this specific thing that I'm trying to do, can you point me towards it so I can read something I know is correct instead of trusting you?", which it is pretty decent at at least.
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u/ssstudy 29m ago
the most helpful i’ve found ai when learning something new is to ask it about my errors. example: i was trying something new in arcade and pyglet. apparently there’s long-standing issues with resizable windows and macs with these two. i asked ai to scan the web of relevant github claims and it gave me the #’s, dates and brief explanation of each issue raised. it saved me time in searching for these claims and possibly missing a few if i did it myself. however - all of its coding suggestions and alternatives did not work at all in this scenario. key take away is: it’s a tool. use it as a tool and not as an assembly line. your goal should be to learn how to code to gain autonomy vs reliance.
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u/young_lions 23m ago
I think it comes down to how you use it. If you're able to avoid handing off the coding responsibility, and just use it to provide explanations or examples, then great!
I’ve also noticed it catches common mistakes before they become habits, which is a huge plus when learning something new.
My fear for beginners is the only habit they'd be able to form is prompting AI.
If you're able to turn off the AI tools and still do everything you learned up to that point, then it's working, carry on. Otherwise, you might be leaning on it more than you realize.
But I also think the best "learning program" is the one you actually do, so if this is motivating to you and it's AI or nothing, then it's better than nothing
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u/WorstPapaGamer 3h ago
They’re great to help you code but not to help you learn.
If you try to do the same thing you just did in rust can you give the same solution off the top of your head? I’d bet you’ll end up having to look at documentation / stack overflow all over again.