How to get back into programming without AI?

- Remove AI from your editor completely. - Start a project which is easy and fun for you,something you did when first learning to code. Text-based adventure game, or some silly little app that is just for fun. - Or take a new language or some aspect of coding, that you have only brushed over, but want to learn better, and learn it properly by doing coding exercises or some silly project that teaches you the syntax etc. - Most importantly relearn how fun coding is

I use Claude only to ask questions (in separate virtual desktop, no chat inside the editor) if I can’t grokk the doc’s or find the answer online. This keeps the LLM input valuable, but not using it as a crutch, and me honest and learning constantly.

This is a genuine question, to get more context:

What's stopping you from programming without AI?

Start by setting a timer or a limit

I don’t think the goal should necessarily be “without AI,” but more “without depending on AI before thinking through the problem yourself.”

One thing that helped me was forcing myself to: - design architecture first - debug manually for a while - read docs before prompting - use AI more like a reviewer than an autopilot

The fun part of programming for me was always the problem-solving loop, and it’s easy to accidentally skip that now.

- Would you like to do that for a fun? - just do.

- Would you like to do that to encrease quality - build architecture manually and then ask AI to refine and code it, add more automation testing with help of AI.

Tell why you would like to do that, the answers can be different.