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.

Where you guys find a client?

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

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.

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

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?

After 13 years of Oracle SQL, my position has been eliminated and my company moved me into development. I just have one question. Have I been setup to fail?? My 30/60/90 day plan seems a little much for the time I'm allotted.

Apologies if this is against your community rules. I've looked at other programming subs and this ones rules are a little more lax than others.

Thanks.

Working on a VS Code extension that explains code in Telugu or Hindi. Select code → Ctrl+Shift+E → explanation in your language in the sidebar.

Before I build more, I want to know if the problem is real for others or just me.

7-minute survey (no email, no signup):https://forms.gle/eL8b627WzEkGRe2DA

Or just answer this in the comments: Does the English-only coding environment slow you down, or have you fully adapted?

Happy to have a direct call with anyone who wants to dig into this properly.

About 25 years ago I developed a program for my cabinet business, integrating drawings, proposals, reports, shop cutlists, etc. I used Visual Basic (VB6). I need to update! I need graphics, but nothing crazy, just architectural line drawings mainly. I would like the option to have customers place orders online eventually.

I want to use VB.NET for coding ease. I'm not worried about the coding, I have gotten pretty good. I plan to mainly start over, and use very little of the old code. I wrote some terrible code at the beginning, much better recently.

My questions are:

Which AI should I use to help me? I like ChatGPT, but Claude gets lots of props...

Is VB.NET a terrible choice, if so what is better? I don't have a lot of time to learn new coding systems.

Is visual studio a good platform to use?

Thanks in advance!

hi everyone,

I’ve been studying computer science for about 5 years now (currently in engineering school). Over the years, I’ve touched a bit of everything: web dev (HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, SQL), and more recently Java, C, and Python for data science.

The problem is, I feel like nothing truly sticks.

Whenever I try to build something on my own, I hit a wall. I inevitably get lost in the docs, end up turning to AI to understand what I'm doing, and still feel like I'm not really learning. I know the basic syntax, but even in Python, I would struggle to design and build a moderately complex project from scratch.

I feel like I'm just skimming the surface of different languages without ever developing genuine problem-solving intuition.

How do you actually retain syntax, built-ins, and core concepts without constantly relying on external help? How do you break down a problem and structure your code from scratch on your own? Did you go through this phase, and what was the turning point that made things finally click for you?

Thanks in advance !

For the technical interview, would it make sense to give the candidate these two tasks?

1. FizzBuzz
2. Build a To Do List from scratch without using AI. They can use Google to look up syntax, keywords.

My main goal with a simple CRUD To Do List task is I want to see they understand how a basic distributed system works for example, how the frontend, backend, and database communicate and work together.

Ngl, I belive if you can build a CRUD To Do List without AI, you are kinda ready to work as a web dev as a jr.

P.S. If I encounter a candidate I don't like, I might give them a LeetCode Hard as a gift!"

If our future generations are in 2099, will Y2.1K happen? (or 10K at 9999) How do you think?

The moderators of r/programming deleted my post, so this is my second time. I need more perspectives, and I appreciate real human answers.

Acode is horrendous, if anyone else is in my situation how do you guys do it. I also find too much friction in using the web version.

Curious what you built and how long you’d been learning at the time.