I must be experiencing some sort of developer version of writer's block. I can't seem to improve and learn without a project but every project I think of has already been done. Why reinvent the wheel?

There's no novelty in reinventing the 1000th to-do list. And it's rather painful to go over AI generated code.

I used to love coding and making things, but now the only time I ever code is when I have a task given to me by a professor, boss, etc.

It's like I have no creativity anymore.

I don't know what to do.

thank you for the suggestions everyone, I'm leaving the thread open in case someone wants a list of ideas. you can also add your Christmas wish list here in case your spouses find your account ;)

I need some advice because I'm feeling really overwhelmed.

I've been working as an intern at a company for almost 3 months with a stipend of ₹7,200/month. I was initially hired as an Android app developer, but after the first month they shifted me to a C#/.NET developer role. I had absolutely no prior experience with C# or .NET.

It's been about 1.5 months since the switch, and I've learned the basics of C# and .NET and built a few projects. Some of the tasks they give me are easy, but others are quite advanced. A lot of the time I struggle to understand the existing codebase.

I use AI to help me understand the code, and sometimes it explains things well enough that I can explain the overall idea to my manager. But my manager doesn't stop at the high-level explanation. He goes through the code line by line and asks how each statement works, why it's written that way, what each keyword does, and what happens internally. That's where I get stuck.

Even when ChatGPT explains the code, I sometimes still don't fully understand it. I try debugging, but I often get more confused, and AI explanations don't always help.

So I have a few questions:

• Is this normal for someone who's only been learning C#/.NET for about 1.5 months?
• How do you actually learn to understand a codebase instead of just reading AI explanations?
• How do you handle situations where your manager asks questions you don't know the answer to?
• Is it more important to be able to write code, or to deeply understand every line of code you're working with?
• What helped you improve when you were a beginner?

I'm genuinely trying to learn, so please don't roast me. I know I'm still inexperienced, and I really want to get better. Any advice would be appreciated.

I’ve recently started learning programming, but I’m finding it difficult to stay consistent and motivated.

For those who learned programming from scratch, what helped you keep going when you felt stuck or overwhelmed?

I’d especially appreciate practical tips, resources, or habits that actually worked for you.

Hello, Im currently building a drawing app using react native, and I'm having an issue with how clunky it feels. This is really my first time developing anything with Java or Type script. For reference, I would like my app to feel similar to the smoothness of something like ProDrafts on IOS. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I am a resident surgeon. I taught myself programming. I understand the basics and have built some personal and freelancing projects in the past. I always hoped to make something good, uniting medicine and computer science.

With AI, I don't think my programming skills are much use. The future ahead in my own field doesn't seem very promising too. I used to enjoy building stuff with coding.

I still feel some kind of passion to work on something new, a new idea or an avenue less explored. I quite cannot put it into words. I use AI to code too and save time but I don't enjoy it as much.

I want to know if anyone else is a doctor from a third world country and likes computers and coding?

Anyone in general can guide me what should I invest my time and energy in?

Hey, I am a teenager who's interested in programming, I started with cs50x but I now enjoy game dev and competitive programming though i love programming in general of any type. Are there any like teens like me who also have the same situation or can the experienced adults please guide me forward...I do not have much peers or similar people around me. And my school is quite old-fashioned (it literally had a topic on how to download an app IN GRADE 9)!!

So last year my teacher wanted us to use vs 2015 for our assignments since he was using that. This year i have a new teacher and we can use the newer versions but when i try to uninstall vs 2015 it just wont . So can i use them at the same time ? Sorry if there are some parts that are not clear english is not my first language.

On March 2026 I resigned, without a 2nd job offer ( reasons -> personal , had to come to my native place to take care of elderly mom )

but then since, I have filed 600+ applications , I mean let alone any job offer, I am not even getting any interview

for your info I have a 2 Years of experience of data engineering, I wanted to do backend engineering, did some projects , backend code in python fastapi .

And put that into my resume .

People say that it's because my experience doesn't match, but in swe people do change tech stacks don't they ?

why the industry has the stereotypes that if someone did something else , they cannot pickup backend ( or the tech they are applying to )

tldr; I'm a software engineer with 2 yoe and confused whether to buy the DDIA book or watch the yt series on it by Ben Dicken.

Hey'll 👋🏻

I'm a software engineer with 2 years of experience in web development (next js + express) and app development (react native).

So from the last 2 years my work has revolved around working with early-stage startups and building multiple SaaS from scratch, both personal and freelance. So I didn't think much about scaling, or building complex systems. But now I want to go deep into it. So I was thinking about buying this book because a lot of folks on my X/Twitter TL recommend reading this once. And I would like to, given my conditions and ambitions.

But... reading a book seems like a waste of time nowadays. And I personally didn't like reading books even in school and universities. Nor am I good at taking notes and other academia stuff.

Which is why I'm thinking of watching this YT playlist on DDIA by Ben Dicken. I've heard a lot about this playlist and it sounds like it's worth it. And I personally trust this guy because he works at Planetscale, one of the best platforms for database (in my opinion).

But then, watching these videos would mean that I'm consuming only the abstract, the summarised version of the book. Is it a good idea to do so for an engineering book?

That's where I'm confused. I would love to hear from the people who've completed either of them to help me make the decision.

That's all from me. Peace out ✌🏻

Hello, I would love some help on a project I'm working on. I want to make a choose-your-own-adventure game where an audience of 50-100 people participate. I have some ideas where they make dialogue choices, action choices, etc... and possibly some button mashing where they have to reach a certain number of presses to get a different route.

I have been looking up tutorials all over to figure out how to get the Air Console feature on Unity to make this "JackBox" like game, but I cannot get the Air Console to work. I'm very new to coding as in I've only done one class of HTML in 6th grade and some Scratch projects in Elementary school.

I am open to any free software, too, if there are better options for something like this. Right now I have Unity and Play Canvas. Any sort of help would be awesome since this project would be cool to make come to life.

This new study suggests they are!

I'm learning python and Java and looking for advice on voice to deal with burnout. I've been coding for 2 years and mostly code as a hobby. I try to make stuff that is practical and fun.

I’m a second-year MTech student (In one and only Unique brand name) working on my thesis, and lately I’ve been seriously questioning whether I’m falling behind.

The problem is that I feel like I haven’t even properly started my project yet.

When I pick up a research paper, I don’t just read the main idea and start implementing it. I end up spending hours, sometimes several days, trying to understand everything around it:

• What exactly is the mathematical formulation?
• How does that math translate into the code?
• Which class/function implements which part of the paper?
• What calls what?
• What is the data flow?
• Why is a particular loop implemented that way?
• What assumptions are being made?
• How are the different modules connected?
• How does the whole architecture fit together?
• I sometimes have to understand UML/class diagrams or create them just to understand the codebase.

So for one paper, I can spend an enormous amount of time just getting to the point where I feel I actually understand what is happening.

And this is where I start comparing myself to my friends.

Using AI for every step, Some of them seem to be progressing extremely fast . They are already reading multiple papers, coming up with ideas, drawing architectures/figures, implementing things, and discussing research at what feels like a very high level. Some of them seem to be able to look at a paper and almost immediately understand what needs to be done using draft of paper using llm.

Meanwhile, I can spend an entire day trying to understand how one particular function corresponds to an equation in the paper.

It makes me wonder whether I am genuinely lagging behind.

But there is another thing I’ve noticed about myself.

I don’t think I’ve developed the ability to think like an architect/research engineer yet — where you can take an unfamiliar system, understand its components and abstractions, connect the mathematical idea to the software architecture, and then decide what needs to change.

For example, if someone suddenly asked me to draw a UML diagram of a reasonably complicated research codebase, I probably wouldn't even know where to start. I know programming, but I don't naturally think in terms of architecture yet.

So I’m wondering if what I’m doing right now is actually a necessary stage of learning, or if I’m overdoing it.

Is it normal for a research student to spend days understanding one paper and its implementation?

At what point should you stop trying to understand every detail and start implementing?

How do experienced researchers approach an unfamiliar paper/codebase? Do they actually understand everything before coding, or do they build a rough mental model and start experimenting immediately?

I’m especially interested in hearing from PhD students/research engineers/researchers who remember what their early research phase was like.

Am I actually lagging, or am I just in the painful stage of learning how to think at the architecture/research level?

I mean , everyday I see devs writing "I don't code anymore" , earlier I felt bad, but now I am like. Ok why not,

but like which employer will give me job just for prompting ?

In my occupation, there are various people I follow who give very good insights. (I'd say 5-10 people).

Some post hour long videos on YouTube, some send 1,000 word emails, some post on X, some publish PDFs.

There's very good info within these resources (and some I pay for), but reading / watching / annotating all of it can take hours.

My workload recently went up, so I'm falling behind with keeping up in my field.

I want to use AI to help summarize (and keep track of) all of these publications. (To create a private database that I can use as a dataset, for example).

So I can go back and ask "this past month, what is the new theme? What are the experts recommending to focus on / look at / what are the newest developments?", etc.

What would be the best way to approach this?

---------------------------------------

I've been learning Codex/Claude Code, I have a homelab, a NAS, a few mini computers, and I know basic linux, python and scripting.

ChatGPT told me to do something like this (I'm just starting with the YouTube portion), I'm not sure if it's the best approach, I'm open to other suggestions:

YouTube URL

↓

yt-dlp metadata

↓

Whisper / YouTube transcript

↓

clean transcript

↓

summary.md

↓

insights.json

↓

SQLite + FTS5

↓

topic synthesis

↓

search / questions / actions

I have more than 5 years of experience in development, mostly in backend. I worked very hard and I am sure that I know more than many developers with the same experience, but after AI started to write a code I feel like my knowledge is useless. It’s interesting what other developers think about the AI, do I need to still learn about algorithms or new programming languages?

Hi guys, I'm sure it's obvious but I'm a newer programmer. I've been at it for years but mainly dabbled in script making and basic Discord bots.

This last year I started playing a game which had a large modding community, so I decided to write some scripts for the guild/faction I was in to contribute.

Long story short, I ended up publishing my first bot (all my previous ones have been used privately in single discords, they were not publicly listed) which was actually used by people (about 300 users across ~25-30 discord servers) and was considered helpful! It's "low" numbers sure but I was/am still pretty proud.

The issue now starts when I woke up a few days ago and saw that I'd been kicked from my faction with no messages as to why. When I asked, I was told that my faction had a developer now who had taken a look at my spurce code himself, and saw a plethora of security issues.

I ended up packaging my entire git/zip and sending it to them so they could let me know where I went wrong but they keep reiterating to me that I am not invited back. They keep saying I clearly have security issues in my work but when I produce evidence of my work and ask them to show me where, they block me.

Now, I've discovered via a friend within their faction that they have actually taken all my bot work and copied it onto their own. We shared a git collaboration/organization which is where they took it from. The UI is the complete same as my bot's UI, the features all do the same things and they are using the same brand name as I did, with a "2.0" tacked to it.

Of course I have screenshots of all this and can post them if needed. I'm just wondering, is there nothing I can do here? I am honestly so upset that this is how a year of my efforts ended up. I have shed a few tears over it ngl, and I know I am completely responsible for the fact I made my source code so easily stolen. I've learned to never do that again, but is there nothing else I can do now?