Welcome to /r/learnprogramming!

laid off in july after eleven years in logistics coordination. severance plus savings takes me to roughly the end of february if nothing breaks.

i have a partner who works and a five year old. we are not in danger and i want to be clear about that, because i know how these posts read. we are fine. what we are not is able to do this twice.

so i have about six months of full time hours and i am trying to work out whether six months of forty hour weeks is a realistic runway to employable, or whether everyone telling me it is has something to sell me.

i would rather hear it is not enough now than in february. i have handled worse news than that.

I've been working at my cousin's company for a month and a half. The business provides chatbot services, builds chatbots, CRM systems, landing pages, and everything else a company with a website needs. I work on the technical side and provide support. Since it’s a relatively new company, we already have several clients: an auto parts distributor, a real estate agency, a cosmetic clinic, and a restaurant. But so far, I haven’t written a single line of code—we do everything with the Cursor agent. I just give it instructions, and it takes care of the rest. The “most difficult” thing I’ve done is securing an e-commerce site with Cloudflare. I want to learn programming well, since I’m a computer science student (seventh semester), and I was taking a Java course, but at the same time, I want to know if it’s actually necessary to be a skilled programmer these days, or if most companies operate this way nowadays.

I've been a self-taught everything(Woodworker, Chess Player, Programmer, Furniture Repairs...etc) ever since I last went to school. The one secret that kinda helped me learn things efficiently is, learn what you can use now.

See, a programming language is big. You should not try to cram all the syntax at once. You can, but that is not an effective way to go about learning something as deep and wide as a language. It could be a spoken language or any skill whatsoever.

It is important to follow a roadmap or some structure. Especially a structure that breaks what you are trying to learn into small tasks. Each task should consist of 2 main things. A lesson and practice.

In any programming language, there are two main parts. The language specific part and the computer science part. If you read through a programming language book, the computer science part is broken down into concepts that are not specific to any language. They are known as fundamentals.

So, you will learn about data concepts (variables and types) and then program something small that implements what you just learnt. Dont worry about deep concepts, you will get there. Then learn about collection concepts (lists and others). Program something small.

Approaching programming this way has been effective for me since 2017. Dont get me wrong, I did learn about advanced stuff I never implemented before. You will too. It's good to know what exists. But remember, if you want to learn effectively, chop down your skill into smaller tasks, learn and implement. Don't wait to implement after a while.

Today is my day 6 of learning Java and Backend Engineering from First Principles. Time flies and a part of me wants to rush the process... but I know that, that is not efficient for who I want to become.

For people who have been programming for a while, what mistakes did you make when you were just starting out?

I'm curious about things like:

• Trying to learn too many languages at once
• Watching tutorials without actually practicing
• Spending too much time trying to memorize syntax
• Starting projects that were too difficult
• Avoiding documentation or debugging

What is one mistake you made early on that you wish you had avoided?

I'm heading off to uni in 2 weeks and I've heard personal projects can be pretty important for internships/spring weeks, so I'd love to get some feedback on a football game I've worked on.

I'd especially appreciate feedback on the code structure, readability, organisation and anything you think I should improve as I continue developing it.

https://github.com/willhe7/football-tactics-simulator

Hi, so I don't have any idea what my career would be. I am a teenager who just got off HS and I still dont kbow what course to take, so I'm planning to try everything beforehand. I really wanna try coding, is there a way to learn it without ai or taking a course? I've checked tutorials, everything I see is with AI.

I want to know which YouTube tutorials will help me understand the topics best. I am trying to learn MERN stack but i am a complete beginner.

I’m 22 and unemployed, and honestly, I feel completely lost about what direction to take.

I love programming, but I can’t figure out what I actually want to stick with. One day I’m building a full-stack app, the next I’m learning Rust, cybersecurity, compilers, or agentic AI. I start tutorials and projects, get halfway through, get stuck or distracted, and move on to something else.

I feel like I know a little about many things, but I don’t have enough finished work or real results to show for it. I want a job, but I’m not confident in my skills, and I’m constantly wondering what’s worth learning, what pays well, and what isn’t too competitive.

There’s also pressure at home to get a job, and I don’t really have friends to talk to about this. My mind is constantly jumping between things, and it’s becoming overwhelming.

I haven’t given up on programming or on myself. I just genuinely don’t know what direction to take,

I just want some direction on what I should focus on and how I can actually move forward.

I want to give up but I don;t know what I want to do I want get into programming badly but its way too overwhelming

i saw this guy on tiktok making a quine code, and i challenged myself to make one too without looking at his solution

i was so happy when i got it to work, just made me realize i could probably use this to fill up the storage of a computer. like a trojan horse

anyways heres the code

x = 'print(f"x = {repr(x)}; {x}")'; print(f"x = {repr(x)}; {x}")

Hi there!

Recently I had an HR prescreening for a software development position. The HR person was impressed and set up a time on the spot to go forward and do a more technical interview with the actual development team.

I’m trying to think about how to prepare myself for the interview, but HR mentioned a lot of their software is “proprietary” and will take anybody time to get used to. I know that the company primarily uses C# (which I am the most familiar and comfortable in) alongside some SQL, python, React.js and a bit of VBA. Anything that would be good to brush up on/practice for this? Thanks

so i am in need of helped. i got tutor online, who prefer an off hand approach to study. he tasked me to make tictactoe game in python and use elephant slice method, by which he means is to break the project into small steps and report and demo each progress.

i kinda understand how to report the progress, via git hub. however i dont understand how to demo the progress to him. i make the board for the game, push it to git hub, and he said 'too bad, if only i can run it on my pc'.

what should i do to demo my project progress?

Hey everyone,

I originally started Vermell about 4 years ago to understand how web frameworks actually work under the hood (sockets, routing, request lifecycles) in modern C++. I ended up pausing it for a while mainly because of security concerns with low-level networking and memory.

Recently, I picked it back up and have been auditing/refactoring the codebase with the help of some friends and AI tools to get it into better shape.

It’s lightweight, simple, and still evolving. If you’re learning C++ or want to see how these internals fit together without getting lost in a massive codebase, feel free to check it out.

Contributions of any kind are super welcome from reviewing security and testing edge cases to fixing docs or adding small features:

GitHub: https://github.com/vermellcc/vermell

Site: https://vermell.cc/

Any honest feedback, tips on the architecture, or security pointers would be awesome. Thanks!

I'm a junior in this world of programming and code. Recently I watched a video talking about programmers and how AI is doing everything and is changing completely the role, from write or review code to supervise AI but not taking an important role. In the video, the youtuber said that the role of software engineer is like a fabric. The programmer just supervise the AI, touch a few buttons and make sure that everything is going well. Basically, AI is taking our jobs.

I am a little concern about this situation, because I am studying Informatic Engineer and learning new skills to become a Backend Engineer or Cloud Engineer. I'm passionate about this world of computers and code.

What do you think? AI is taking our jobs and programmers are going to disappear?

I have learnt python built some basic projects too, but now i want to use this skill to built something useful and what python is useful for so please any ideas.

Hi everyone,

I built that provides an LSP for intel 8085 microprocessor which is a part of syllabus for most universities, and the most used online editor(atleast, in our uni) was sim8085. But unfortunately, it missed an essential feature, an LSP. So, because of that I've ended up writing an LSP, that you can integrate with your nvim, or soon will be merged into sim8085, so no worries in that part. I'd love if you check it out and give it a star if you find it useful :).

https://github.com/shri-acha/lsp85

Hi all! I am recently trying to develop an app, and Googling around I came across many other concepts to build an app and host it (software architecture, system design, Computer Networks to understand the basics of requests etc., and also patterns like the ECB pattern, and Database Knowledge like SQL and DEVOPS to test and integrate) so before doing the programming I kinda want to learn the other fundamentals, what sources (books, courses, etc) would you suggest me? Me and my friend are the only 2 on developing it, so we kinda need to be a team and be all-rounders

thanks and have a nice day!

I have reached the point where I want less learning and more building.

I have been working with JavaScript, Node.js, Express, MongoDB, and now React. I have built a full-stack project, but I still catch myself wanting to watch another tutorial whenever I get stuck.

I am trying to change that.

Instead of immediately looking for a tutorial, I want to get comfortable reading documentation, debugging, breaking things, and figuring them out myself.

For those of you who have made the jump from following tutorials to building your own projects, what helped you the most?

how do you deal with resuming work on an older project that you didn't finish , i always forget why i did something even tho comments are available and my level of motivation is always lower than the motivation i initially started the projects with . it's a weird feeling that i think a lot of you have experienced or am i the only one?

do you have any tips dealing with this and how to quickly get back into the mood and focus mode

Hi everyone,
I’m currently exploring NSDA (National Skills Development Authority) certification in Bangladesh and wanted to know about other people’s experiences.

For those who have completed an NSDA course or certification:

• How useful was it for getting a job?
• Is NSDA certification recognized by employers?
• Does it help with freelancing or career development?
• Which NSDA courses would you recommend for beginners?

I’d really appreciate hearing your genuine experiences and opinions.

Hello! I am a high school student and I've been interested in programming but never had the motivation to learn how to code. I'm doing a school project where I have to create something. I would like to make a 3d Aim Trainer game but I don't know where to start. My only experience in coding is Roblox lua, but even then I'm mediocre. If anybody can give me tips, it would be very helpful.

I'm getting into software development I started a course and it's self paced and we are just given a textbook and have to study it and do our assignments but the thing is how do I actually RETAIN the info I learn from the textbook? I really don't want to have to rely on ai I seriously have loved the idea of programming and coding and I want to properly learn it I'm fairly new at this does anyone know or have any resources or advise on how to study properly?

Hey all,

I’m currently working in Japan in the automotive industry, and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about trying to move into AI work.

With the way things are going globally, I’m also hoping to eventually find something in Europe or Australia if that’s realistic.

Right now I’m kind of stuck on what I should focus on first. Would it make more sense to spend more time on the theory side of AI, like algorithms and fundamentals, or should I be focusing more on practical stuff like AI applications, agents, and building projects with current tools?

My Japanese is just okay, and honestly my English isn’t that strong either, so I’m also wondering how much that might limit my options.

If anyone has gone through a similar career switch, or has any advice on what route makes the most sense, I’d really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

I'm a 30-year-old guy, and to be honest, I'm currently dealing with severe depression. I come from the Middle East, where my country has been torn by war for the past 15 years. I had to drop out of university, and due to life circumstances, this is the 4th time I find myself starting my life over from absolute zero—this time here in Germany, where I'm currently learning the language.

​I feel completely overwhelmed and burnt out. I don't want temporary or dead-end jobs anymore; I want to build a real career. Computer science and programming are the only things I'm truly passionate about.

​Since I don't have a university degree, I would really appreciate hearing your success stories if you managed to break into the tech industry as a self-taught developer (especially around age 30). How did you do it?

​P.S. If you have any negative or dismissive comments, please skip this post. I am in a very fragile state right now and just need some realistic hope and advice.

​Thank you.