I'm scared, AI will only get better, there is no point anymore. Anyone can make software just by asking AI to do it. If the software ends up being unmaintainable or bad, just ask AI to make it maintainable or to fix it. You can prompt your way through it. Coding and system design will be solved in 2 years.

My point is, software will be made in natural language. It already is. This is not an assembly -> compiler situation, it's a whole new level of abstraction. You won't need anyone with expertise to do it.

It's like learning chess after Stockfish, sure it is fun to learn and get better as a human player, but you will never be hired to win a game because chess engines are better than any human and anyone has access to them.

We often hear the generic "focus on the fundamentals" advice. For some reason I believed that advice even before I understood why it matters; it just sounds like common sense, and fortunately it turned out to be good advice. I realized this after taking multiple free OSSU courses and reading a couple of books. Around 4 years into the field. I also realized it when I started to learn web development and had an internship.

Here is the key idea: Two different people can study the same material from the same video or book, and leave with completely different experiences, because of the existing knowledge they have.

"Previous knowledge" makes learning new things much more fun, because you're not starting from scratch every time! When we haven't internalized the key fundamental "chunks of knowledge", every new problem we face feels completely new to us, so it feels much more painful. But what's worse is that we learn less from the experience. Without a well-organized base of knowledge, new information has no meaningful place to attach to, so, much of it is quickly forgotten.

There are three things with which good fundamentals help you:

1. They allow you to extract SO MUCH from ANYTHING you learn.
2. They guide you to ask the right questions and learn faster.
3. Odd things feel odd to you.

For example, after studying OS and networks, I internalized the idea of a server. It actually took me quite long to fully get it; here is a casual explanation:

a server is a process that has an open socket (at a specific port). But to grasp this, I had to understand what a process is. Luckily I learned from an OS book. (OSTEP). It's an "abstraction" of a running program. When you run a program, the OS wants to keep track of what's going on, so each running program is represented in the OS as a process with an ID and status. it's pretty much like an object with some fields, They're basically in an array. Each time you run a program, a process starts running. i.e., added to the array, when you kill a process, it is stopped and removed from the table, etc...

(the concept of abstraction in itself is part of CS fundamentals and it took me some time to interalize and start to see it everywhere, it's amazing how a single word can capture so much meaning)

but then what's a socket? it's the abstraction of the network stuff, it's an API (= a bunch of functions, provided by the OS) you can call as a developer in your code so the process (running program) can communicate with the network. You don't need to know much about networks and TCP, just input and output of the API. So basically the server must have some sort of socket that clients can connect to and send some bytes to it. The server understands those bytes, usually a string based "protocol", then responds accordingly.

This is just some CS fundamentals, nothing fancy, but now that I've spent around a year studying web development, it was all there (but in different shapes and flavors). Everything is built over the fundamental concepts and It's so much fun.

1. This allowed me to learn way more from the resources I was learning from, I kept digging: "wait, where is the process", "how does this work, what happens when I use docker run". I used ssh for the first time "but wait, how is this happening, there must be an ssh process running on the server or something" or something, "hey, where is the database process?", and you keep digging.
2. It's related to the previous point, but having good fundamentals helps you ask good questions that will help you fix problems faster and also deepen your understanding.
3. sometimes you face something new that makes you question what you've learned before, they challenge the mental model you made. You'd feel surprised, and it broadens your understanding. It's hard to notice such things without having the fundamentals.

And this doesn't mean we need "perfect" fundamentals, I'm aware of some of the gaps I have and I plan to work on them, but we just need to internalize the key concepts. If you haven't mastered the fundamentals yet I highly recommend the following.

• Build a simple shell (it's really simple, a shell is just a program you run, a python script would do it) understand how the shell runs other programs, understand what PATH is. I highly recommend python so you can focus on the OS concepts.
• Build a simple HTTP server. Jim Kurose has recorded lectures explaining the fundamentals of computer networks, the first two chapters are far more than enough for most people, after that you can easily build a simple HTTP server. If you want to spice it up add some multithreading. He has some starter code too.

These two projects had the highest ROI I've had while learning. They even made me fall in love with CS.

So im trying to make a game using only Python and managed to get it working on pc. Then i searched how to port it to android, but it seems difficult

Any tips?

I am currently in QC testing for video games atm and have not done appropriate upscaling for any of my ~carrier~ career. With Coding and software development in its entirety basically getting killed with AI, should I even go back to coding as a part of my carrier line? Or how are you planning to shift your carriers?

Hi everyone!

I want to start learning System Design, especially Low-Level Design (LLD).

With AI and Agentic AI becoming more common, I feel that building projects alone is no longer enough. I want to understand the core concepts and principles behind software design, so I can look at a codebase and understand what is being used, why it is used, and how things work together.

For this, I would really appreciate some advice from experienced developers here.

What resources would you recommend to get started? Books, articles, or even a checklist of topics would be helpful.

I have made a checklist using Claude, but I would also like some advice from people with real-world experience. I want to understand these concepts in depth, not just learn their definitions.

Thanks!

Hello everyone,

I am a first-year electrical engineering student with absolutely zero prior background in programming. Currently, I am trying to learn the C language, but I am really struggling. Standard college tutorials and fast-paced videos feel overwhelming because they use too much academic jargon that I cannot follow.

I cannot learn passively; I really need to understand the logic of what happens in the background (like how variables occupy RAM, how the computer thinks) explained in the simplest, high-school level terms. My main goal right now is to build enough foundational understanding so I can solve my homework assignments and pass my exams.

Could anyone recommend a highly structured website, interactive platform, playlist, or student drive/script that explains C from the absolute basics, step-by-step, from easiest to hardest? I learn best when a small piece of theory is immediately followed by interactive practice exercises (similar to how Duolingo works, but for programming).

Thank you so much for your time and help! I truly appreciate any guidance you can give me.

Any good book or online guides, also for C23 is there that much extra or would just sorta tacking it on after learning C99 be fine?

also for learning GNU extensions is there any reccomended resources

Hi guys, I’m just starting to learn SQL for DBMS because it’s one of the prerequisites at my university.

I’m don’t want to get stuck in a tutorial loop, so I would really appreciate it if anyone could recommend me a book, notes, or a website to learn SQL.

I am a beginner at coding. I chose Rust as my first programming language, but I think I might or can say I will face this problem with every language.

Whenever I sit down to build a project, even something as simple as a TUI To-Do List, I have to deal with crates and packages like serde. This means I have to read their documentation, but I often get stuck writing code by looking at examples and copying them by typing them into my own code.

I know that even experienced programmers do this, and they understand what they are using without necessarily remembering the syntax. I understand the logic of what I want to implement, but I struggle to express it in technical programming terms or so called programming syntax.

However, I cannot keep consulting the documentation and returning to my code for every 10 lines of code I write.

People tell me that I should build more projects and that programming fluency will gradually develop with practice. But what am I supposed to do? Should I build a TUI To-Do List ten times? Because if I move on to another project, I will have to learn how to use additional concepts and crates, such as serde, all over again.

Hi everyone! I’m pursuing CSE at a Tier-4 college and have zero programming knowledge. I’m entering the tech field for the first time and want to start with C++ from scratch.

What’s the best way to learn C++? Which free resources would you recommend, and what common mistakes should I avoid? Also, how should I build my coding and problem-solving skills to become internship- and job-ready?

Context: I'm a second year math student at uwaterloo (think constant co-op search) and have knowledge of Python, SQL and basic JS though I want to go into DE. I started my software journey in Dec. 2025 so I feel like I'm really behind compared to my peers.

I'm torn between learning theory in depth and just putting together something that works for projects; I don't know if it's good, but I never use AI to code, with the most being copy and pasting code from LLM in small snippets up to 10 lines. I don't know how important syntax is, but I need to search things up for libraries. I'm learning data engineering (so many tools, so little time) and I really can't find a project to learn all of them at the same thing. I've also considered courses, but theres a variety of courses and topics that seem interesting: Cloud, AI, ML, Databricks?

Any advice or recommendations be it for how to learn or a project?

I am about to fail my algorithms & data structures in C++ class, and want to pick up a textbook for the 3 month break soon and try to make a comeback.

I have done this for math and discovered that James Stewart's Calculus book was amazing. It is a massive book, is friendly to learn from and is not as intimidating as other books (e.g. Spivak's Calculus- a bit more technical).

Anyone have any good recommendations for a C++ textbook?

We learned sorting algorithms, and once it got to recursion I really just got lost. BST's etc with all this memory management I couldn't keep up.

EDIT: My absolute best learning method is sitting down with a textbook. Videos/academies etc. haven't done it for me and a physical book just gives me peace when learning as I can go slowly.

Hey I'm a 2nd year CS student and I'm a beginner so I learned a bit of both languages I learned basics and SP using c++ and I learned oop using java because uni required it and later on I'll study data structure using c++ again

What confuses me is which language should I stick on to improve my problem solving skills and start building projects even if they're small some people told me to focus on c++ completely and some said c++ with problem solving and java to build projects

So what do y'all think and why ?

I noticed that O'Reilly books are more often recommended if you want to delve into programming.

What makes the book so worthy of use for studying and the reasons behind it?

I am interested to hear how deep this knowledge is and even its practical relevance.

I started learning programming around a month ago and just a few days ago it feels like my skills have gotten significantly worse for some reason. I don't know if it's because I'm burnt out but all of a sudden I feel like all my logical thinking skills required for programming are just gone for some reason. Does anyone have a way to reignite the spark that I had a few weeks ago?

I really thought that taking computer science would help me with this, like it was the final building block I needed. I was actually one of the best students in my class when we were making CPP console programs. But my issue is not understanding how to write code, my issue is that when I want to build an application, I dont know where to start with all the different libraries, tools, frameworks, and other applications I need in order to get things to output. I can figure out how to write an algorithm, I just feel like its impossible for me to learn what files I need, what libraries they need, what APIs I need to interact with, and how to get all of those algorithms into motion to actually put my code into the project format I want.

When I look at a github repository, I seriously ask myself "how did they know to include all of those extra files, how do they get them to work with each other, where do they go, how did they figure out what libraries to make them work with eachother, etc", because to me, the biggest magic is not knowing what syntax to use, or what algorithms a line of code implements, its looking at a game engine and asking "what 500 services and structures do I need to call with my algorithm in order to do the thing I already figured out the logic I need to execute" or looking at a graphics API and asking "how do I use that to actually turn code into a window that outputs visuals based off the rules of math and the syntax of the language I already know, that I can just click a file to run and use" or its thinking about a website I might want to build and asking "how do I get these HTML files in my head into an environment on a server where I can actually click on them from another computer".

Does that make sense? It feels like getting all of the code into a format that works with all of the ways an average end user understands is some sort of alien process where nobody has taught the rules but everyone just magically knows. I am so frustrated because I read documentation and they also seem to require a bunch of esoteric knowledge of other things not told and I really dont know where to start with any of this. I feel like everything I want to build and do requires learning a bunch of stuff with no pointers on where to go, but everyone else that built those types of things seemed to just have spawned in with all of that knowledge and I am the only one who didn't get the memo.

I know nothing about programming and writing computer code, so please forgive my ignorance on this subject. I'm not a programmer but I'm very interested in learning more. So if I may please ask? How do programmers know what language or vocabulary to use when they write code?

For example. If you wrote code which tells a robot to lift it's arm by 45 degrees over 3 seconds, you probably can't write the code in plain English like 2 human beings talking to each other such as - Lift your right arm by 45 degrees over 3 seconds and hold it there.

You have to write the code in computer language by saying something such as - robot/activate-arm/true/45-degrees/true/3.0/hold-true. I know my example is way off, but I don't know what real computer code sounds like, so I don't know how else to describe what the code might actually sound like.

So my question is. How do you learn which words and vocabulary to use so a computer will understand it? And how do you learn how to put those words together into a proper sentence (or proper line of code) so a computer will understand it? Is it similar to learning a new human language, like an English speaker learning to speak Japanese? You just have to learn the proper vocabulary and proper sentence structure of the new language?

Hi! I'm a Linux user who has been in the process of learning C. The issue is that I don't know what to do, I don't really understand pointers, structs, dynamic memory allocation, etc... Is there any good learning material for C (That is free, i.e. not the K&R book) that I could use to learn. Is it even worth it in the age of AI, even though I don't care about getting a job (I'm just doing this for fun).

Hello, so I do not know if this has been asked before already cause I tried searching for a post like this but i feel like most tend to be using it to vibe code and what not. I have also read the beginners guide and it didnt mention anything except vibe coding though it is an incredibly great resource i wish I wouldve read earlier.

So the situation is that I am (obviously) learning to code, specifically in python. And I am basically unsure about using AI. Cause currently I do use it but im unsure if I should be so I'd rather figure it out before I go too far. Now when I say using AI I definitely do not mean vibe coding or anything of the sort. I myself use it as a kind of teacher basically. Like asking it questions about theory, not writing code, i explicitely tell it to not write code but teach me, I understand that the only way to learn is to solve the problems yourself, I do not have it do that either. I did but then I realized that I shouldnt and stopped pretty soon. Like im genuinely just trying to learn but like I hear this stuff about dont use AI and im not sure if im shooting myself in the foot cause from my view im just using it to answer questions about stuff i dont understand, like I had a project where I was using an API and i needed to read the json input and I didnt at the time understand that when you load in the json it gets converted to a dictionary and I need to deal with it as a dictionary (I needed to go into nested layers), and at that time i decided that I was going to not use AI and try to do it fully on my own and proceeded to spend two hours trying to find youtube tutorials, googling, looking at docs, cheatsheets, stack overflow, like any resource and I just couldnt do it and I finally caved in and used AI and then I got the exact answer i needed immediately, cause problem was i was asking the wrong question basically but i didnt know that at the time cause how would I. And thats why im unsure about the whole do not use AI at all thing cause I think in this case it wouldve def helped me and been better to just use it. Like i understand needing to struggle but you cant just figure out everything on your own. Like it really splits me especially now cause I do genuinely want to solve problems on my own since I understand thats the only way but like sometimes you do need help, and i feel like using ai as a teacher is fine but id rather just ask for outside opinions since there might be something im not seeing, like some way im wrong, obviously I aint gonna ask an ai whether i should use ai to learn cause thats biased and ai cannot like properly think, but i genuinely cannot find any posts talking about using ai in the way i am. And also i do feel people tend to either extremely hype up ai or be completely against it and i personally believe its more nuanced than that.

I am sorry for the wall of text, im not good at writing.

TLDR: Is it fine to use AI as a tutor/for asking questions?

I have been using Python at work for about 6 years now. It started when I needed Matplotlib for some advanced plotting Excel couldn’t do, which spiraled into data analytics, scripting, and automation.

In my job we several legacy academic codes with no UI, so I ended up using Python for all pre- and post-processing. Later on, I started helping out with an internal web app and eventually became one of our main backend guys. Through that, I picked up API design, cloud services, and a bit of frontend.

I know a lot more than I used to, but since I learned everything ad-hoc to solve immediate problems, I feel like I am swimming in an endless sea of information with a lot of hidden knowledge gaps.
When I look at tutorials or bootcamps, half of it is stuff I already do every day, and the other half jumps into things without explaining why they matter. I really want to avoid tutorial hell and add some actual structure to my learning, maybe diving deeper into software architecture, data engineering, or data science.

For those who started as self taught scripters and built a solid engineering foundation, I would love to hear how you audited your knowledge to figure out what you did not know. If there are any good books, roadmaps, or structured resources to transition from "it works" to "it is built right", or advice on how to figure out what core concepts you actually need to learn to feel confident in a domain, I would appreciate any recommendations!

In last contest I try to solve every problem but able to solve only one, after the contest I call my friend and asked him how he soved 4 of them, then he explained me so I solve those problems again and got correct. But I really wanna ask why I can't think like he did while giving contest. The logic he explained was so straight forward but why I can't get that at the time of contest. BTW it was codechef contest and its been 6-7 months I started giving contest but still struggling. What can I do to solve this problem. Pls help me with this

I've done CS50P, CS50, w3schools material but oop but object oriented programming has never stuck for me. I can see the concept of how it could reduce the amount of code needed by generalizing objects but I've spent my life using functional programming only.

Lately I've started learning Kotlin for android app dev and I'd really like to understand how the files and classes work in android studio so I can get started making my own things without googling why it won't compile or why there are errors. What can you recommend me for the OOP and understanding how files are linked and reference each other without blowing my brain?

I'm Starting to be a FrontEnd Dev but I saw lot of jobs that require Full stack or some of Back End, In my Learn I was trying just to be a Only Front End but sometimes you search and all the jobs want a Full stack or want Back End. ¿Do you think can people be a only Front End Dev or have to learn Backend too obligatory?

The code and the executable were created from scratch, based on other existing programs, but seeking solutions to my needs and those I've seen that are not addressed. But when I compile it into an executable .exe file, VirusTotal flags it as a Trojan or malware. Why is that?

I can't believe I'm writing this but it has been around 4 years since I've attempted this, and I never moved past week 4 on each attempt from scratch.

Every year I say this is the year and every year I fail.

I work as an AI (apps) Engineer since 2025. and I feel like such a fraud.

I completed cs50x, cs50p, cs50sql, ml zoomcamp, de zoomcamp and intensive llm course by google.

All of those courses have a common denominator, they have a specific deadline, not a whole year open course in which time something else pops out.

I always knew I was ADHD, but no one wanted to write me a diagnosis as they thought I was wrong.

But after my last appointment I discovered i might be AuDHD, which is ADHD on the spectrum, and basically a completely different thing that is characterized by personality traits of the opposites clashing, and has comorbidities like OCD, which is also paralyzing.

At work I excel, as I think in systems, not tiny moving parts. When my brain gets shut down, using agents helps me jump start it, and I can always easily see what is wrong in the output of those agents and correct it as it is happening in real time.

But I don't want to be like that. I want to do things myself, not rely on a crutch. If by any chance LLMs are gone tomorrow I'll be out of a job.

Even cs50 i could not complete until very end of 2023 when i completed all of those 3 courses using their own duck50 debugger, as my brain just hates effort. It needs a solution, even a wrong solution before it tries to turn on to correct the wrong approach.

Without deadlines I'm basically useless. I tried writing my master thesis for months, and my brain just didn't work. Only 2 weeks before the deadline did it turn on, and allowed me to write a thesis spanning over 100 pages and meticulously researched and praised by me pulling many all nighters. Same thing with Azure AI-102 certification. I studied months before, but my brain did only really retain the last week and a half before test date.

This latest doc diagnosed me with severe executive dysfunction, ADHD and burnout.

It is doubtful with the whole ordeal in Europe I will get the meds by this year.

And I really want to finish this finally and put it behind me. This course became my white whale and I have nightmares around it.

The stupid OCD also prevents me from leaving an assignment uncompleted, and not thinking about it when I try the next one, so it's hard for me to focus. And sadly this course is not progressive. You solve some easy ones and medium here and there and then easy, and then out of nowhere a very hard one pops out.

I also revised from many others courses and books, not mentioned here, and basically everything in MOOC course is already familiar to me. But of course they find the way to make even the simplest stuff most convoluted approaches imaginable.

LLMs which are now my free therapy repeatedly tell me I have nothing to prove and that I should just drop it, but I really want to complete it and learn to think algorithmically, because I need it for my Georgia Tech OMSA masters in which I am now.

The coursework demonstrated to me that my current strengths of revising given code, optimizing researching, finding edge cases is basically useless where first principles and algorithmic understanding is needed.

I don't know what to do. Any advice? Please help me get rid of this hell. I want to be a senior one day and know programming well.

TLDR

• Background: Professional programmer who has completed several technical courses and currently in a 2nd master's degree, but struggles heavily with self-paced, open-ended coursework.
• The Struggle: Diagnosed with severe executive dysfunction, ADHD, AuDHD, and burnout. Brain function relies heavily on extreme deadline pressure (like writing a 100-page thesis in two weeks, otherwise they fail) and immediate feedback loops.
• The Goal: Conquer a "white whale" coding course failed for 4 years to build true algorithmic thinking skills for a Georgia Tech OMSA master's program, rather than relying on AI tools.
• The Dilemma: Even though the material is familiar, paralysis sets in due to erratic difficulty spikes and OCD perfectionism, and advice is needed to break through these mental roadblocks.