06/15/2025
Time for a little celebration! I finally wrote my own program without any code given to me by AI. Not a single line. It’s my very first real world project I will use for my day to day. I’ve had a similar product that was written 90% by ChatGPT and it’s been useful, but I was frustrated by wanting to add this or that feature and not understanding how. I’ve felt this ever growing ‘AI’ shadow when it has come to anything related to these tools I’ve created to help with my job. I can finally say this is my tool.
I’ve spent the last few weeks learning file handling (I think it’s called I/O?) data filtering, and string parsing. I can explain line by line what this does and why. What a great feeling! My learning structure DOES use AI in terms of lessons, quizzes and assessments. This has allowed me to learn by trial and error, mostly learning from mistakes. While I didn’t write this without any errors, or frustrations, I still did it!
If anyone is interested in a similar approach, I instruct Claude to give me baseline assessments (50 questions) on any given Python fundamental. This allows it to develop a lesson structure. From there, I spend a couple hours a few times a week going through the class, learning from a ‘lecture’ style method, then I have practicals. Before a practical, I have to give it an outline of the logic I want to use, to include any functions/methods. I usually do this with comments. During practicals, I instruct it to NOT provide me any code, but it can ask me questions and hint at where things may be incorrect.
What a win!
