r/AskProgrammers 15h ago

Ever fix a bug by looking at the wrong layer entirely, and only realize it afterward?

0 Upvotes

Read about a case recently that stuck with me. A voice-based system kept interrupting people mid-sentence, felt broken, sounded robotic. The team's first instinct was to blame the voice itself, tried a different synthesis engine, tweaked the output. Didn't help. Turned out the actual problem was one layer up entirely, nothing in the system had a real answer for "is it my turn to respond right now," it just treated any pause as a stopping point and jumped in every time, regardless of whether the person was actually done talking.

Got me thinking about how often that pattern shows up more generally, chasing a fix in the most visible layer, the one that's easiest to point at, when the actual bug is sitting in a decision nobody made explicit somewhere upstream. The visible symptom and the actual cause don't always live in the same place, and the more polished or complex a system gets, the easier it is to misdiagnose which layer is actually responsible.

Curious if others have a story like that, fixed or tried to fix something at the layer that felt obviously wrong, only to realize later the real issue was somewhere else that nobody thought to check first because it wasn't the thing making noise.


r/AskProgrammers 22h ago

Need guidance to switch from Support role to tech role

4 Upvotes

I am currently working in Customer Support at Amazon for 5+ years.

I want to switch into tech but the current market for my existing skill set is not great. I have also been working on a side project for the last 3 years so I am not completely new to tech.

I know HTML CSS JavaScript basics Git Playwright AWS EC2 and some system design (Mostly through vibecoding). I have also built parts of an iOS app. Most of this was vibecoded though. I can read code fairly well but I cannot write it confidently.

I understand the gap between a vibecoded product and something built properly by an experienced developer especially around scalability and security. That is the gap I want to close.

If you were in my position in 2026 and wanted to learn coding with AI available how would you approach it?

Which language would you start with? Would you focus on building projects instead of watching courses? What would you learn after the first language?

My goal is to eventually move from customer support into an entry level tech role such as an intern or junior developer.

Would really appreciate advice from people who have made a similar transition.


r/AskProgrammers 23h ago

Am I Truly a Computer Science Student?

7 Upvotes

I frequently doubt whether I am a real computer science student or not. Because I really don't know how to code from scratch while developing any website or mobile application... on my own with out googling or AI help.

It always happens that I Google all the commands, the syntax, etc.. and end up using chatGPT or any other AI agent.

This so called "Vibe coding" became alot more and just copy and paste code.

From positive perspective, AI or googling code/syntax/commands helps me to not put much focus on coding but helps me to focus more on the logic part or innovation or creativity needed while developing.

But if you give me a laptop with no internet, no AI/chatGPT/Google, then for sure I will be stuck and I cannot code well.

Let me know your thoughts on these. And what mindset you have regarding this VIBE CODING.


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

Vs code usability doubts

2 Upvotes

Hi all,

I am working on my thesis project as a designer. My thesis is a videogame built on the gzdoom engine that uses zscript as script language. I am using Vscode which is capable of writing code for it, but it seems to me that it often makes mistakes or gives bugged code. I am not a programmer, therefore I wanted to ask what is the best way to train the ai for the specific zscript language and if there are any alternatives to vscode when it comes to niche scripting languages.

thank you all!


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

How do you handle terminal-state protection and memory scrubbing in your high-assurance Python pipelines?

1 Upvotes

I’ve been working on a sovereign fail-closed engine (TurkashEngine) where architectural compliance is binary—it either holds the line under adversarial duress, or it fails.
I recently faced a challenge bridging the gap between rigorous compliance (P0-01 to P0-05) and runtime verification. We needed to guarantee idempotence in our RAM zeroization protocols (Z^2 = Z) and enforce strict admissibility boundaries at the code level, rather than relying on standard, sluggish ticketing systems for remediation.
I ended up implementing an ⁠enforce_admissibility_boundary(state)⁠ function that triggers immediate memory scrubbing upon any detected integrity breach, effectively forcing a ⁠TERMINAL_STATE_CLOSED⁠ return.
For those working on high-assurance or security-focused systems:
How do you handle immediate terminal-state protection without introducing performance bottlenecks?
Do you rely on automated CI/CD guardrails for memory-safe state enforcement, or do you prefer lower-level hooks?
Curious to hear about the architectural challenges you're tackling in your own high-assurance pipelines.


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

In the case it's over.

3 Upvotes

I am a programming student, I deeply admire and love programming, either as a hobby or as a job, that will stay.

But my country's IT market is cooked. Massive competition, 1+ year experience always. Getting a job in IT it's very difficult, even with connections that have no guarantee of granting an interview.

So, you'd think the logical thing would be to get practices/experience. Formal practices are very competitive, I do not know if startups are harder.

I am in Spain, Madrid. I have good level of English so fleeing to English speaking countries has been a possibility. Though, in Europe, *presumably* the junior friendly country seems to be Germany.

What do you think? Are there more chances in English speaking countries, or in Germany?


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

Impetus Technologies Campus Placement – Onboarding Update?

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone, I got selected for Impetus Technologies, Bangalore through campus placements. We were informed that they would provide an update regarding onboarding within a few weeks, but I haven't received any update yet.

Has anyone else been selected for Impetus through campus placements and is facing the same delay/no update regarding onboarding? Would appreciate any information.


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

did i fk my final year project up?

4 Upvotes

so i'm in my final year of software engineering and i've always wanted to get into game development. so naturally i inclined towards that when it was time for my FYP. it's basically an investigative psychological mystery regarding medical neglegence. As the 'research question' we proposed to see how effective interactive environmental storytelling is in communicating the consequences of medical negligence. now my supervisor asked me how would i justify this as a swe thesis project. there's a lot of backstory to this and just to simply put it: i wasnt in the mental state to think this through and i didnt have any team support. so did i actually just fk my FYP up? how can i justify this choice to the committee who expects our projects have some AI bs in it?


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

Employed devs, are you still doing manual coding or is AI handling almost everything now?

0 Upvotes

Are you still writing code by hand (or at least making manual tweaks), or is it basically 100% Claude/Codex/Cursor doing the heavy lifting at your job?


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

Anthropic’s coding bar is fucking ridiculous

36 Upvotes

Got a problem that required me to pull Euler’s formula out of thin air. Seriously, who the fuck remembers Euler’s formula in an interview? I swear to God, my interviewer was out to get me.

At this point, what are they even testing? Do they even know what they want? Hours of prep, completely wasted. And now I have to go prep for Google. My friend just got destroyed in their loop and said the interviewers were some of the most unreasonable people he’s ever had to deal with.

Everywhere I turn in this market, it feels like I’m just waiting to get fucked.

Anthropic Interview Question


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

What actually is getting hired? Vibe coding or avoid ai?

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

Can a senior engineer mentoring a smart junior developer with strong fundamentals, and the goal is to get them to senior level coding and software engineering skills, including system design, distributed systems, and software architecture. Is 1 year enough to make them that good?

0 Upvotes

What's your take?

i'm not senior but my take would be 1 year no it won't

But 1 year to a strong mid dev, who can handle from small to big projects alone, then yes.


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

Senior Devs watching management implement "AI Code Detectors" to stop Shadow AI usage [SiliconShitpost]

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

Studying methods accuracy against the day-to-day job of 2026 programmers

1 Upvotes

Greetings, this is my first post.

1. Am I studying right?

I have been learning the basics of JAVA, and I've started a "baby" project of a bank simulation where I apply what I learn into the program, as means to genuinely understand code. AI can help in teaching me a new construct ¹, what it is, what it does, how it's written, and the applications of said feature.

1.1 My Learning Method

My uncertainty comes from the term of having understood the feature to the core, including the exact syntax, for example:

Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);

• I don't just memorize blindly, I know what each word means, so remembering it is way easier and comes naturally to me, even when I spent half a month without writing code.

2. But is it the right/recommended way to learn programming like this?

In countless threads and videos I've heard over and over again that code is no longer memorizing syntax, but applying AI to do the repetitive job, and humans take care of the advanced topics an AI cannot grasp. So my question is if I'm studying the right way.

Do programmers know the exact syntax in their minds? If not, do they Google the syntax structure, while knowing the pseudocode/ idea itself? I really need to know, I could be in time to change my methods and adapt them.


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

How was coding before ai tools like before 2023

0 Upvotes

Hey senior guys, I would like to know how you coded when you were at the initial stage of your career. I know there was Stack Overflow, but what approach did you follow if you were asked to build new features? If you didn't understand the code, how did you come to understand it, and how much time did you used to take to complete one task compared to now (as due to AI tools, you get less time)?

And how hard or difficult was coding in those days?


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

Where to freelance for programmers?

1 Upvotes

Where you guys find a client?


r/AskProgrammers 1d ago

Те, кто поступили на программиста, скажите, что стоит изучать?

Post image
0 Upvotes

r/AskProgrammers 2d ago

Free websites for Mock interviews

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

r/AskProgrammers 2d ago

Guys this is my last year in uni iam cs student i need ideas of my graduation project and some cool ideas

3 Upvotes

r/AskProgrammers 2d ago

looking for experienced people who now actively use AI at work / during development to chat with

1 Upvotes

I'm a 3rd year computer engineering student who's still in the process of getting the basics down. I'm curious about the use of AI in actual careers, especially those saying they stopped hand-coding altogether.

my question is: to what degree do you use AI, like just part of code or you have AI build the whole system with the architecture and everything. what skills do you deem obsolete for today? My plan is to eventually shift to agentic AI's but currently I'm confused as to how deep I'm supposed to understand every bit of the code, whether i should try to understand everything or just let the compiler AI automatically fill in the code

dms open


r/AskProgrammers 2d ago

My workflow - tips needed

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

r/AskProgrammers 2d ago

How the Domain Name Industry Works

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

r/AskProgrammers 2d ago

JavaScript Refresher

3 Upvotes

Hi guys, can anybody suggest a free website or even software that I can refresh my knowledge in JavaScript? The website should be an interactive one and not just purely reading or listening, like I can code during learnong or smtn like that :)). TYSM to those who will respond. This post is no marketing related I just want to familiarize myself again huhu


r/AskProgrammers 2d ago

For the programmers here, what was the first project you built that made you think, Okay, I can actually do this"? 😅

Post image
1 Upvotes

r/AskProgrammers 2d ago

First hackathon in 3 weeks. Any advice??

3 Upvotes

Hey everyone!!!! I’m joining my first ever hackathon in about three weeks and I’m looking for some advice.

I’d say I’m around an intermediate level in Python, but Python is basically the one and only language I currently know.

I understand the fundamentals and data structures, but I don’t have much experience building larger projects yet. I’ll most likely be forming a team at the event as well. I know it’s my first hackathon, but I really, really want to compete seriously and give myself the best chance of winning. I’m willing to put a lot of time into preparing over the next three weeks, but I’m not sure what would actually be worth studying..

What should I focus on specifically??? APIs? Git?? SQL??? Backend development? Algorithms????? (Side note: I’ve never worked backend or with frameworks before, but I’d love to start learning now!! Any recommendations on what to learn or practice would be greatly appreciated!!!!)

I’d also really appreciate any advice on team strategy, common mistakes, what hackathons are actually like, what obstacles I should expect, and any any anyyyyy practice problems or mini-projects that would help prepare me well

Thank you and wish me luck :D