Kevin Ma
195 posts

Kevin Ma
@kevinma_dev
Senior Software Engineer | Building with Go, TypeScript, React Native/Expo, Next.js. cn: @kevinma_dev_zh
Sumali Eylül 2022
425 Sinusundan71 Mga Tagasunod

I’ve used Mac for ten years, it’s my best investment.
CG@cgtwts
investing in a macbook can change your life
English



For anyone new to programming, I recommend starting with introductory videos on YouTube. A good strategy is to choose videos that have very high view counts.
These videos have a few key advantages:
- Clear Explanations: They explain complex topics in a very simple and easy-to-understand way.
- Practice-Focused: They guide you step-by-step through hands-on exercises, so you learn by doing.
- Immediate Feedback: By coding along with the video, you can see the results of your work right away, which gives you a great sense of accomplishment.
If you run into a problem that you're truly stuck on, that's a good time to ask an AI for help. Think of it as a more advanced search engine.
My wife is a great example. She learned with this method, starting with no programming knowledge at all. Eventually, she was able to build some simple web pages on her own using HTML and CSS.
Although I frequently use AI to help with my own programming now, I strongly advise beginners against using it as their main teacher. The reason is that AI can sometimes give you inefficient or even incorrect guidance.
A more effective learning path is to first master the fundamentals using videos and books. After that, you can use AI as an assistant while working on real projects to help deepen your understanding through practice.
I’ve shared a couple of HTML/CSS/JS introductory videos that I think are excellent in the comments below. Please feel free to share any high-quality learning resources you know for other languages as well.
English

For anyone new to programming, I recommend starting with introductory videos on YouTube.
A good strategy is to choose videos that have very high view counts.
These videos have a few key advantages:
- Clear Explanations: They explain complex topics in a very simple and easy-to-understand way.
- Practice-Focused: They guide you step-by-step through hands-on exercises, so you learn by doing.
- Immediate Feedback: By coding along with the video, you can see the results of your work right away, which gives you a great sense of accomplishment.
If you run into a problem that you're truly stuck on, that's a good time to ask an AI for help. Think of it as a more advanced search engine.
My wife is a great example. She learned with this method, starting with no programming knowledge at all. Eventually, she was able to build some simple web pages on her own using HTML and CSS.
Although I frequently use AI to help with my own programming now, I strongly advise beginners against using it as their main teacher.
The reason is that AI can sometimes give you inefficient or even incorrect guidance.
A more effective learning path is to first master the fundamentals using videos and books. After that, you can use AI as an assistant while working on real projects to help deepen your understanding through practice.
English

Codex is so reliable that I don't trust Claude Code much anymore . Every time it messes up I have to turn to Codex to fix it.
For my workflow, two ChatGPT Plus for coding and one Claude Pro for smaller tasks is enough .
However, I still prefer Claude for documentation , as its formatting is cleaner and more organised.
English

Before the AI boom, I was a big fan of all JetBrains tools. I subscribed to them for many years.
When Cursor became popular, I didn't like the VSCode family, but Cursor was so useful that I almost stopped using JetBrains IDEs.
In fact, after Claude Code and Codex CLI came out, they worked well inside JetBrains. But I write less code by hand now, so I switched to NeoVim and canceled my yearly subscriptions to Cursor and JetBrains.
JetBrains AI is done badly. They could learn from Zed: integrate good external AI tools and mix them with their own strengths to keep users.
I hope JetBrains gets better. Maybe I'll subscribe again in the future.
English
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