It's a double-sided coin. LLMs are probably the best way to learn programming languages right now. But if you vibecode in a programming language that you don't understand, it's going to be a disaster sooner or later.
This is also the reason why AI will not replace any actual jobs with merit.
Examples are the best documentation, and we now have a machine to produce infinite examples tailored specifically to any situation
> Examples are the best documentation ...
No they are not, as examples lack explanation of the concepts underlying a programming language's definition.
> ... and we now have a machine to produce infinite examples tailored specifically to any situation
This is like saying, "to learn X language, just read a bunch of source in GitHub repositories that use it."
What books written by authoritative people provide, such as language designers or recognized luminaries, is conveyance of key linguistic concepts and an explanation of "the why" they are important. This is the sole purvey of people.
Most of what you claim as being better does not address how people can discover concepts of which they are previously aware. To wit:
One cannot complete "labs + quizzes" unless they know
how to answer same.
One cannot "Ctrl-F in a PDF manual" unless they know
what to search for.
EDIT:
An exemplar to consider is how the Actor Model[0] can be used to define a FaaS[1]-based system. Without being aware of this paper, it is unrealistic to expect someone to be able to formulate LLM prompts incorporating concepts identified by same.
Side note: the Actor Model[0] paper is far older than a "5yr old tome" and is very much applicable to this day.
0 - https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/41962/AI_WP_1...
Interactive labs can do a great job of teaching skills, but they fell short of teaching understanding. And at some point, it’s faster to read a book to learn, because there’s a reduced need for practice.
Hypertext is better than printed book format, but if you’re just starting with something you need a guide that provides a coherent overview. Also most online documentation are just bad.
Why ctrl+f? You can still have a table of contents and an index with pdf. And the pdf formats support link. And I’d prefer filtering/querying over generation because the latter is always tainted by my prompt. If I type `man unknown_function`, I will get an error, not a generated manual page.
> LLMs are probably the best way to learn programming languages right now.
Books still exist, be they in print or electronic form.