While I agree with the premise that "vibe code hell" has replaced "tutorial hell", they are very much not the same. To expand on that, let's start with the fact, that a good coder needs both "skill" and "knowledge".
Tutorials (at least the good ones) give you some knowledge - the tutorial often explains why they do what they do and how they do it, but don't give you any skill, you just follow what other people do, you don't learn how to build stuff on your own.
Vibe coding on the other hand gives you some skill - how to build stuff with AI, but don't give you necessary coding knowledge - the AI does all the decisions for you and doesn't explain why it did what it did, or how it did it, it just does it for you.
"I can't do anything without Cursor's help" is not really the problem. The problem is that vibe coders create some stuff and they don't understand how that stuff works. And I believe this is much bigger problem than knowing how stuff works but not knowing how to use it.
Learning doesn't need to be "uncomfortable". Learning needs to be "challenging". There is a difference. The suggested approach here vaguely reminds me of the "you must first learn how to code in a notepad before using an IDE" approach.
While the real takeaway should be "you must first learn how to learn, before properly learning something". To learn something properly, you need 2 things: To know what to learn, and to know when you've learned it. To know what to learn you need a curriculum - this obviously depends on your specialization for coders, and can be more crude or more detailed, but you still need something to follow so that you can track your progress. "When you've learned it" for coders is when you can explain what some code does to a colleague and answer questions about said code. It doesn't matter if you wrote it, or someone else wrote it, or an AI wrote it. Understanding code you didn't write is even more important than understanding your own code.
Tutorials (at least the good ones) give you some knowledge - the tutorial often explains why they do what they do and how they do it, but don't give you any skill, you just follow what other people do, you don't learn how to build stuff on your own.
Vibe coding on the other hand gives you some skill - how to build stuff with AI, but don't give you necessary coding knowledge - the AI does all the decisions for you and doesn't explain why it did what it did, or how it did it, it just does it for you.
"I can't do anything without Cursor's help" is not really the problem. The problem is that vibe coders create some stuff and they don't understand how that stuff works. And I believe this is much bigger problem than knowing how stuff works but not knowing how to use it.
Learning doesn't need to be "uncomfortable". Learning needs to be "challenging". There is a difference. The suggested approach here vaguely reminds me of the "you must first learn how to code in a notepad before using an IDE" approach.
While the real takeaway should be "you must first learn how to learn, before properly learning something". To learn something properly, you need 2 things: To know what to learn, and to know when you've learned it. To know what to learn you need a curriculum - this obviously depends on your specialization for coders, and can be more crude or more detailed, but you still need something to follow so that you can track your progress. "When you've learned it" for coders is when you can explain what some code does to a colleague and answer questions about said code. It doesn't matter if you wrote it, or someone else wrote it, or an AI wrote it. Understanding code you didn't write is even more important than understanding your own code.