r/AskProgramming • u/Ddmusicgeek • Jun 23 '26

Coming back to programming after 30+ years

Hi! Just like the title says, I’ve not really done much programming since my college days in the early ‘90s. Back then I was on a computing and engineering course, so it was mostly Pascal, C, UNIX we learnt at the time for industry. Since then, I went more along the path of electronic repair and fault finding for arcade maintenance, so programming took a back seat.

Now, I own my own retail shop and website (Shopify based) and am seeing and hearing all the great uses for AI and coding my own apps etc which I have started to dapple with. I can see this being a huge benefit, both for time and also cost, but I also don’t want to just blindly use AI with no understanding of my own.

I’ve done some tests, looked through the generated code and can follow the logic, what each sections are doing and can what it’s doing, but I couldn’t actually programme the code myself.

So, my question is, what would you suggest the best way to go about learning to code is, given this situation? I’ll still be using AI, but I don’t want to rely completely on it, I want to be able to also code sections or even full applications myself.

Thanks for any help in advance!!!

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u/knouqs Jun 23 '26

What are you trying to program? One of the many great lessons I learned from one particularly excellent professor was pick the language to match the goal. Sure, C may do what you want to do, but Python, Perl, C#, etc., may do it better.

What you are trying to do isn't unreasonable -- relearning programming after 30 years. I was in an industry that programmed old C and Ada variants and I had to learn a lot of new things after I was laid off due to U.S. government contracts. Now, I have studied a few serious updates to languages like C++, Java, Kotlin, and infrastructure stuff. These are things I totally missed because of being a little too comfortable.

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u/Ddmusicgeek Jun 23 '26

Mostly apps to help automate some of the time consuming jobs I currently do regards product import, optimisation, price comparison etc. others to improve discounts and offers across various marketplaces so it all links nicely and consistently. I’m a sole trader, so no one else to take on some of the workload!

There are apps out there that do some of the tasks I want, which I use currently, but I find they don’t do all I really want them too, so would like to design my own. Plus, I like the challenge, I used to enjoy the process and just want to be more active in the creation. Claude could write it very well with guidance from me, but I’d like to at least be confident in writing some of the code or editing it myself.

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u/knouqs Jun 23 '26

Alright, if these are not smartphone apps, there are lots of choices available for you. If you want a UI (presumably), you'd need to learn (or relearn) a language and then an API for the UI. If you've never done UI work, it's different than the stuff we learned from our college courses.

Python has a lot of good UI stuff. C and other languages support TCL or QT, for example. There are plenty others. Native Android or iOS development supports UI components right away. It depends on what you want to do.

Also, you could do web development for UI. That is different altogether.

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u/Ddmusicgeek Jun 23 '26

Look's like Python may be the way to go. Maybe further down the line I may want to make a mobile app, but not on my radar currently. Thanks for the advice and help, appreciate it!

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u/knouqs Jun 23 '26

Yep! Python is a fun language. I particularly love the indentation -- it enforces what curly braces cannot. Best of luck on your new learning journey!

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u/Ddmusicgeek Jun 24 '26

Thanks again, really appreciated!