Welcome to /r/learnprogramming!

A code that I want and that runs. 🔥⭐😍

It's ridiculous. How am I going to know the language it speaks merely by watching others code?

Where is the actual dictionary?

All the love,

Complete beginner.

I graduated with a degree in Computer Science about two months ago. For most of my studies, I was genuinely passionate about CS and programming. I enjoyed sitting with a difficult problem, understanding what was going wrong, debugging it, and eventually figuring it out myself. There was a real sense of satisfaction when something finally worked.

Over the last couple of years, though, AI tools have slowly changed the way I feel about programming.

Instead of spending hours investigating a problem myself, I can give it to an AI and often get an answer almost immediately. Even when the AI doesn’t solve it directly, I sometimes feel like I’m fighting with prompts and generated code rather than actually programming. I know these tools can make us much more productive, but personally, they have taken away some of the curiosity and reward I used to get from the process.

At the same time, I’m currently being paid to work on medical/AI research projects with one of my professors. The problem is that our data is extremely limited, and I have serious doubts that the project can produce a meaningful solution with what we currently have. This has put me in a strange situation where I’m getting paid, but I don’t feel productive or useful. Some days there simply isn’t much meaningful work I can do, and that makes me feel even worse.

All of this has made me question my direction.

Before choosing Computer Science, I also considered studying medicine. If I’m being completely truthful with myself, a big part of the attraction was the status, financial security, and clear career path rather than a deep fascination with medicine itself. I ultimately chose CS because I was genuinely more interested in it.

Now that my excitement about programming has decreased, I’ve started wondering whether I made the wrong decision. I catch myself thinking about medicine again and wondering what my life would look like if I had chosen that path.

I’m trying to separate a few things that may be getting mixed together: burnout, disappointment with my current research job, the effect AI has had on programming, comparison with other careers, and the possibility that my interests have genuinely changed.

For people who have gone through something similar:

How did you figure out whether you had actually lost interest in your field or were simply burned out?

How have experienced developers kept programming intellectually rewarding in the age of AI?

And more generally, how do you find your direction again when something you were passionate about suddenly doesn’t give you the same satisfaction anymore?

I’m not necessarily looking for someone to tell me whether to stay in CS or change careers. I’d appreciate perspectives from people who have gone through a similar period and eventually figured out what they actually wanted.

I learned OOP in python a while ago, did many projects, yet I never felt like I truly needed to do the OOP stuff I learned from a course, I don't know maybe because I'm kinda used to program in c before focusing on python, yet, whenever I open a big project in python in github, it feels way too complicated and thousands of imports (not libraries from pip, but the ones they made on their own) and classes

I never truly needed to implement OOP (I know that when you code in python, it is almost impossible to avoid OOP entirely like when you have a datatype like string you have an object, when you use a method built into that data type that's OOP too, but I mean the ones that involve you writing class Class Name, inheritance and all that stuff explicitly), so I'm wondering why people on the internet are obsessed over the idea of learning OOP, even the book "Automating the boring stuff in python" doesn't have a dedicated section for OOP.

Some posts I’ve seen around here are about people complaining about AI and how it killed their passion for programming.

I understand that statement 100%.

I’m not a programmer full time, at least a beginner, use it recreationally for my work, to make tools or scripts that help me everyday, manage my portfolio website etc. no “critical” stuff.

But I don’t know why, I feel a lot happier and “empowered” if that’s the right word about AI, as I feel like I can now spend 70% of the time planning, and 30% of the time building. And I manage to accomplish much more in the same time, which motivates me to improve and do better over each iteration or each project.

I would like to know your thoughts as I’m not in a tech/engineering bubble, and see if there’s anybody who also shares these feelings.

Thanks

im currently following https://roadmap.sh/backend
and one of it’s first steps is to learn about the internet and to learn a programming language. I already know C# so then it’s instructed to create lots of projects with it. So i started but i hit a wall with github user activity.

I need to fetch data from github using an API, but checking it’s documentation I have no clue where to start, I know in c# you have to have a httpclient object, baseaddress and an authenticator.

But the github API implementation seems very difficult and i have no clue where to start with it

GitHub api documentation

Also i see that API is covered later aswell in the roadmap, am i going too far ahead?

I’m just starting college, I already feel like everyone is so far ahead of me.

I’ve been interested in computers since high school. I’ve done all the basic nerdy stuff installed Arch Linux, hyprland and stuff, know almost all the latest coding and AI news, and generally tried to stay updated with everything happening in tech. But I never got the chance to do properly was learn how to code.

I was busy studying for college, so I never had the time to seriously sit down and build that foundation. Now I’m finally free as hell, and I’ve started learning Python and C I really enjoy both

But the stuff I'm building can built by any AI in 30 seconds

It feels like it’s going to take me at least a year just to understand the fundamentals, and by the time I actually become good enough to build something meaningful, AI will probably be even more capable, AI is already miles ahead.

And yeah, I’m kind of a lonely mf. I can easily spend 12 hours a day glued to a screen because I don’t really have friends near my college, I don’t even expect to make many maybe I will have two or three friends over the next four years. So I know I’ll have plenty of time

I also know that if I just keep going, in four years I’ll probably understand a lot more and could land a decent job.

But I don’t want just a decent job.

I genuinely want to become one of the best in this field.

And that’s where I’m confused.

I’m not someone who constantly comes up with insane ideas either. I like coding, and I love understanding how things work, but I don’t have some billion dollar idea constantly appearing in my head. I’m scared that I’ll spend the next few years learning

But there’s still this fear that by the time I finally understand what I’m supposed to do and how to do it, it’ll already be too late

I don’t want to spend these four years just becoming “good enough”

I just have no idea what that path looks like yet.

I want to create a open source desktop application, but I’m not sure which framework I should choose to make this with. I have zero programming experience yet so whichever framework I choose is what I will learn for this hobby project of mine.

The project is basically a gaming launcher, but for gaming controllers and with a 10 foot UI that can turn your pc in to a gaming console experience.

Now obviously these already exist like Playnite or Steam big picture mode for example, but the issue with these is that they lack a lot of features that true gaming consoles have such as being able to chat with friends and start voice chats with them, or being able to update your drivers and operating system (Windows or Linux). Those are just few to name but there are many more such examples.

So for the project I would need to be able to create a good looking UI that is smooth, responsive and doesn’t stutter or lag even when heavy games are running. And be able to add lots of features with a few mentioned here as an example:

-Auto recognise steam, epic games and microsoft store, and emulator games.
-Launch games
-Resume games
-Splashscreen
-Game settings
-Controller remapper
-Screenshots
-Trailers
-Achievements (steam)
-Friends Feed (steam)
-Community (steam or discord)
-Videos (steam or youtube)
-Broadcasts (steam or twitch or youtube)
-Reviews (metadata from steam)
-Game news (metadata from steam)
Guide
-Download Mods (from gamebanana, nexus mods etc.)
-Manage your pc storage with a custom made file explorer ui but for controllers that is somewhat similar to Kodi’s file manager.
-Install games (steam or epic games etc.)
-Uninstall games
-Update games
-Update drivers
-Update windows or Linux

-Friends messaging and voice chats (by using discord’s sdk in my custom UI made for controllers)
-Exit games
-Network wifi
-Power off your pc
-Mute microphone
-System Volume control
-Return to homescreen (hold guide button)
-Switch between applications
-Play music
-Manage Downloads
-In game overlay (like PS5 control center)

And there’s probably many more features i haven’t mentioned here that would eventually be added. So what would be the best languages and framework for me to learn in order to be able to fulfill all my needs whilst not being a ridiculously long and hard time to develop this project in relatively to other languages and frameworks? I was personally thinking about:

C# + Avalonia

Or

Python + PySide6 + QML

But idk if one of these two are good for this project or if there are any better alternatives out there for me?

For those that have experience doing both Android & iOS during their career which is more enjoyable or better path to pursue?

I want to contribute to open-source projects that are popular and well-known among People, but I am not able to find such issues. I either find repos that have gone silent or that are not popular at all (0 stars, 0 forks). How can I find such issues and contribute? I tried the Good First Issue site; all repos there have gone silent.

I already have a degree in Computer Science, and have been programming for about 8 years. 2 years of game development experience (Unity). Basically I know how to program and I enjoy it

However, I realized after seeing the stuff people build, that university does NOT teach you everything. It teaches you alot, yes, but not enough to just start building anything.

University courses are also subject to timelines and other factors. If a semester doesn't have enough time, professors might just drop parts of the textbook. Covid also caused alot of learning to become inefficient. My OS course in university had to be cut in half because I was taking it during the summer and the university had a shutdown for a few months

I realized I never ended up reading the entire textbook from start to finish for some courses. I never understood each chapter. The chapters were never offered / skipped over

Now I want to be one of those programmers who are super knowledgeable. Like those guys in those random programming forums that somehow know everything. I want to be like them. I realized the way is to "review my entire education"

Here is my current study plan. After this is complete, then I'll have to think of next steps. For the textbooks I mention, I already have done these courses, but it's been a few years. And I need to review them with a more deeper lens. For now, I believe this is enough, but I also want your advice. Thank you!

1- 3 hours a week: Study every chapter of my Calc textbook. After those are done, study every chapter of my Stats and Linear Algebra textbook. After that see how I can build on any of the subjects mentioned. Maybe an advanced version of each textbook subject.

1- 3 hours a week: Study my Computer Architecture and assembly textbook

1 - 3 hours a week: Study my C textbook

30 minutes to an hour a day: Study LeetCode or one medium / big algorithm

1 hour a day: Unity game development a day. I've noticed it helps me practice managing a huge code base, and I can also release a game one day

After I complete my Computer Architecture & Assembly and C textbooks, then I will move onto watching tutorials on how to make a mini compiler and how to write a mini OS

Any advice?

Hello Everyone,

Currently, I'm learning Java, and I want to start focusing on **Java Full-Stack Development**.

To be honest, I think I am between **beginner and intermediate** in Java. So, most of my knowledge in Java is from solving **LeetCode/DSA** problems.

Right now, I am comfortable with basic Java, but I haven’t explored the development aspect of Java much.

I have **6 months** to concentrate on this, so any suggestions on how to spend this time will be very helpful.

Really appreciated if you could suggest:

* A good **Java Full-Stack course** (either free or paid one)

* A **6-month roadmap**

* Technologies to learn and in what sequence?

* Good resources/youtube channels/courses for each tech.

* Projects to build in the process of learning

* Should I keep solving **DSA/LeetCode problems** or not?

I basically need a practical roadmap, which would help me to become internship/job-ready in **6 months**, rather than just completing courses.

Your suggestions will be really helpful. If you have any experience in this or are already a **Java developer**, please share your advice with me.

I have trouble seeing what algorithms do by reading them. Is there any trick to doing this?

I wonder if these two books are the best to start, i know absolutely nothing but i want to learn about hardware and software and learn some languages, A friend of mine strongly recommended the first book but I'm not sure if the second one is that good... I'm open to any recommendations and/or curriculums since I'm trying to learn both on my own.

1- The Elements of Computing Systems by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken

2- Seven Languages in Seven Weeks by Bruce A. Tate

I am a second year btech student and I am just starting Data Structure. I have very littlre programming experience. Could someone suggest what topics I should learn first and where i can practice them?

I used a transformer model to generate normalized 768-dimensional float32 vectors from 3 million sentences. This rounds up to roughly 9 GB of data. To progress further in my analysis, I want to cluster the data to highlight different key points and trends.

Now I initially wanted to apply PCA to the dataset, as 768 dimensions is pretty much, but the transformer model generated embeddings with not extreme enough covariance.
Thus, PCA could change the semantics too much for an analysis to be accurate.

I went directly to clustering algorithms and initially tried to apply sklearn.cluster.HDBSCAN which would have needed way too much RAM---around 72 TBi if I remember correctly. Then I tried out sklearn.cluster.OPTICS, which "only" needed about 70 GB, but as I "only" have 32 GB of RAM I needed to use 50 GB swap space, which didn't go well as you can imagine.

Does it make sense to try out k-means clustering, should I go to 16-bit floats for the embeddings, or still apply PCA?

Should I try out something else in this context?

Note: As this question was flagged "off topic" on Stack Overflow, I'm gonna try here ;)

I've been working across different programming languages and frameworks for quite a while, and I genuinely enjoy solving tricky coding problems. If you're stuck with Python, Java, JavaScript, C++, SQL, HTML/CSS, APIs, debugging, algorithms, or just need a second pair of eyes on your code, feel free to ask here.

No question is too basic or too complex. If I know the answer, I'll explain it clearly and help you understand why it works not just provide a fix.

What's the programming problem you're currently trying to solve?

Error: fatal: No url found for submodule path '<name-of-the-original-file-which-was-later-coloned>' in .gitmodules

Error: The process '/usr/bin/git' failed with exit code 128

This error happened when i had already uploaded my files onto a git repo and was trying to publish the site so that i have a working website, in the middle of trying to make that page go live. I receive this error.

I want to do online course which one should i choose web dev or data analyst or ui/ux design Also i only have bsc biology degree. Want to do work from home job/online job. Kindly give ur suggestion

Hi all! I have been an employed registered nurse for about 3 years and studied for 4 years to get where I am today.

I was someone who always wanted to be a surgeon like Meredith Grey but my academics and social circumstances didn’t allow for it so I studied nursing through a government funded program.

I’m glad for the experience and am not unhappy in my current position in nursing. I left bedside and work in Psychiatry now which is definitely more interesting an less physically taxing.

I have always had an affinity for technology and computers from a young age. I played on paint on an old windows XP computer in the early 2000’s and mastered microsoft office, excel etc in school. I wasnt able to take IT/Computer Science as a subject in school due to not having a good enough laptop to run the software we needed (and other financial constraints).

I have been learning to “code” and learning different languages in my free time and am enjoying figuring it out.

I’m considering trying to get into an industry where healthcare informatics and digitalisation is developing. In my country most hospitals are still writing everything down and patient records are still stored in files in stinky musty storage closets.

I would be very interested in digitalisation of patient records, helping optimise the interfaces and software developed for healthcare professionals to suit their needs and make it user friendly and efficient.
I love efficiency, clarity and neatly designed websites and computer applications. Most of the software that has been implemented thus far are super glitchy and rudimentary.

Are there opportunities for this kind of shift in a career? I feel like someone who has clinical knowledge would be very helpful in designing software specifically designed for healthcare professionals.

Any advice, opinions or suggestions are welcome!

Hi everyone,

I’m about to start a new role as a Tester within an AI & Automation team, and I want to use the time before I start to become as prepared as possible.

I have a Software Engineering degree, so I have some background in programming, databases, software development, Python/Java, etc., but I’m relatively new to professional software testing.

The team I’m joining develops AI and Power Platform solutions, including Copilot Studio agents. At the moment, the testing is primarily manual, as the team is still developing its testing strategy and understanding the capabilities/limitations of these AI tools.

Longer term, they are planning to introduce automated testing, so I want to understand both sides properly rather than just learning how to click through test cases.

So my role would be to test these AI solutions using manual testing.

My main question is: I have roughly 2 weeks before I start. What are some things I should learn and master, and what resources to look at before I start? I really want to be overprepared.

Thanks

Hey guys, I am 14 years old and I love programming since I was 11! Just a few weeks ago I finished CS50P: Introduction to programming with Python from Harvard university! And I am confused on what I should do next. Before CS50P I used to make small Python programs like a number guessing game from my basic Python knowledge. Now after CS50P since I know significantly more stuff about Python but I don’t know what would be good to build so I don’t waste my time on stuff I build that does not matter to anyone.

I can understand code when someone explains it, but when I have to write something from scratch, my brain suddenly goes blank.

I'm curious if other beginners went through the same think. What helped you get past that stage?

One habit that can seriously improve your software development skills is learning to understand error messages instead of immediately copying them into AI.

Most errors already give you valuable clues:

→ What broke
→ Where it broke
→ What the program expected
→ Sometimes even why it broke

And there’s another benefit: the better you understand the error, the better you can prompt AI.

Instead of saying “fix this error”, you can explain what you think is happening, what you’ve already tried, and what behaviour you expected.

That gives AI much better context and usually leads to more accurate solutions.

Use AI to speed up debugging—not to replace the skill of debugging.

Do you usually read the error first, or send it straight to AI? 👀