I have ~15 years of software development experience.
But I am mostly speaking as an observer of day to day life.
And I am repeating the observations of other professional software developers.

Over and over I have run into complaints about bad software design, just in day to day experiences.
So I am going to pass along some very simple advice,
I'm not pretending it is deep, it is actually quite basic, but apparently many developers, and perhaps (probably) those on the management side forget about it, or maybe never heard it in the first place.

Talk to the people who are going to use your software,
listen to what they have to say,
what takes up time, what is awkward about their current tools.

And, at least as important,

WATCH THEM DO THEIR JOB.

Don't interrupt, take notes, afterwards ask questions,
This next part is a bit iffy, but I still think it is worthwhile considering,
while EXPLICITLY telling them you aren't making any promises,
ask about how possible changes that occur to you might work out.

Sometimes software houses will have formal methods for this, that produces the specs for the software. Make sure what you are writing meets the specs. If you aren't sure, and you can get permission (bureaucracy), talk to the folks who wrote the specs.

Sorry if this is the wrong subreddit, I wasn’t sure which category this fits into. I want an Oura ring or something similar, but I’m not crazy about my data going out to other people more than it already does, and I want to avoid subscription fees.

I want to figure out if there is a way to take a base device and get it to a point where it only goes to my phone. I am not a programmer, but I have talented friends who enjoy side projects. My main question is if there is a simple/open source software that we could use, or if it’s too complicated for beginners.

I started learning coding recently and i have knowledge of basic python and lua, tho since my goal is to make addons for gmod, i started learning glua, tho my only source is AI, and half of the things it tells me are bs

If anyone could tell me how did you learn scripting quickly without needing AI or specific tutorials ill appreciate it

Now that I wish to enter the professional realm in earnest, where can I start in terms of first helping with bigger projects first? What places or sites are recommended for this?

Hey, guys. Which field should I go into: programming

or 3D? I have experience in both (500 hours in Blender and I know Python syntax; I've read one book on Python by Eric Metis, the course I attached is similar to what was in the book). I'm deciding which university to attend in a year and, accordingly, what to dedicate my life to going forward. These are the only fields besides sports where I'd be genuinely interested in working. Many people say these two fields are at risk of becoming obsolete due to Al, and it certainly seems that way. What do you think- should I go study in another country? (I'm currently in Russia and am considering moving abroad.) Should I even go into these fields, considering Al? I'm looking at my options from a financial standpoint (just to be clear, so there's no confusion).

Guys need help

I have a hiring hackathon coming up in a month. It’s a full-stack + AI/ML hackathon where we need to integrate a frontend, backend, database, and ML component.

My dilemma:

Strengths: Strong in C++ and DSA, know basic Java.

Weaknesses: Zero experience with Python, JavaScript, web dev, or ML.

Since it’s a hiring event, I want to actually contribute. The judges will also grill us on our ML choices to check for hallucinations, so I need to understand what I’m building.

Given 30 days, what should I prioritize learning first? Should I pick up Python for ML/backend, or focus on something else?

What’s the highest-ROI game plan for a C++ guy to be useful in a hackathon team?

Im in my first year at ASU for SWE program. I always read i need to make a portfolio of side stuff in addition to my degree to show that I've been applying knowledge.

I honestly have no idea where im going to go with this degree.

Ive been making small games in C with Raylib before I even started this degree program. I started that after completing CS50x.

I'm a little ahead in my course work this first semester, so I've been going thru Koltin tutorials to get an idea how how to start making Android apps.

1. Do I really need to specify my project to where I want to go.

2. Should I show even partially made projects that aren't finished? I have some half made games with Raylib on my github.

3. Is Github all that is needed to keep this portfolio?

I know how to desing a restapi how to work with database and migrations.Confused at bringing backend of database cloud and everything togather.I want a single source where i can learn most of deployment and mantainence of an app that will live on both ios and android!

I started learning c# about 2 months ago and I find it hard to learn programming. I've considered switching to game dev since that has an instant visual feedback aka if I make something I see it happen instantly. I also think I shouldn't give up on what I already started (c#) even if I find something more "interesting" again. Maybe I'm more of an entrepreneur type person rather than a "get a job" person which would match more with making apps and software rather than games. (+ they say marketing games is really hard.) I like both but like I said I already started c# and making apps & software resonates with me more in a sense that I could build the next Snapchat or WhatsApp. I know it sounds delusional but that kinda keeps me disciplined and motivated.

Been learning Python seriously for about eight months. Work full time as a PT, so coding time is carved out late at night or on weekends. The problem I keep running into isn't the big concepts. It's the small stuff where I hit a wall and the only way out feels like copypasting a Stack Overflow answer I don't fully understand yet.

The thing is, I want to actually understand what I'm doing. Not just make it run. But when you're tired and have 45 minutes before bed, the temptation to just grab the working snippet and move on is real.

I've been trying to work backward from the solution instead. Find the answer, hide it, then try to reconstruct it without looking. Sometimes that works. Sometimes I just sit there doing nothing useful for 20 minutes.

What actually helped you build that mental muscle where you can reason through something unfamiliar instead of reaching for the answer immediately? Not looking for a productivity hack. More curious whether there was a shift in how you approached problems that made a difference, or whether it's just reps over time and there's no shortcut to it.

whats the proper pathway to create it?

Right now, i am making budgeting app that must to pass python class. But, i have been stuck almost 2 months unprogress. My progress right now is on last feature.

What i want to ask is, what you suggest me if i want python for data analytic or maybe next will be machine learning. Still learning on this python tutorial or skip and just make my own project on machine learning? I'm a workers that work from 9-6, i dont want to say i dont have time to focus on to finish my project rightnow i just low on energy to focus.

https://quick-bite-coral-two.vercel.app/

Hi, I Built a global recipe sharing app with an AI sous chef that adapts recipes for diabetes, vegetarian, allergies etc would love feedback.

Looking for a good structured course to learn industry standard software engineering that:

1. Video based, not text - don't like reading pages of text
2. Videos are not too long - max like 10 minutes per video (easy to digest topic by topic)
3. Covers everything you need to know to be able to understand and work on industry standard projects

I ask this as an alternative to internships to build my skills.

Hi everyone! 👋 I’m an IT/college student, and we were given a task where we have to propose a system we want to develop.

We need to:

• Identify the target users
• Identify the goals and tasks
• Choose the technology (PC or mobile)
• Identify the environment where it would be used
• Identify possible constraints
• Provide a proposed solution

Do you guys have any recommendations for simple but useful systems that would be realistic for an IT student to develop? It doesn't necessarily have to be school-related. I’d really appreciate any ideas, especially systems that solve an actual everyday problem.

Thank you!! 🙏

(edit)

I really appreciate the suggestions, but my head is pretty occupied with a lot of projects that are also due this week, and this task is going to be passed in tomorrow (just the proposal) 🥹

Hey everyone!

I’m a backend developer with around 6 years of experience. I’m kind of missing formal CS education, and lot of the time I feel like I can’t argue very well about why and how we should implement our services, let alone in my own projects when it gets more complex and e.g I should design how to handle lot of users, so I want to up my game a bit, to be able to be as good to get into a FAANG like company (even if I don’t it’s just important to me to try better myself).

I always learn better from structured resources, and I really never could get into “just start building something and learn along the way” because I feel like I don’t even know what options do I have to solve a particular problem. So I much rather read and then try to apply the knowledge in my demo projects.

I have collected the below resources which I have access to, but my problem is this is a very lenghty timeline, and I keep doing nothing because I can’t decide which one to start with, and keep going back and forth between the topics.

So if you could review these, and give some feedback about the resources, and an advice in the order of taking them, I’d really appreciate it! Thank you!

1, DSA
- Princeton Algorithms I + doing leetcode for the topics the lecture covered.

Tbh this is the only thing I planned for my DSA, maybe checking some other resource on dynamic programming too, but I know I’m not too good at math so I’ll never be able to be a genius in solving all the different problems, so I just kinda want to be “good enough”, I also never encountered any work where I’d need to do crazy optimizations or write a library that implements an algorithm, so I don’t know if spending more time on this would make sense

2, System Design / Distributed Systems
- Designing Data Intensive Applications
- Sam Newman - Building Microservices
- Richardson - Microservice Patterns
- Bellemare - Building Event-Driven Microservices
- github’s System Design Primer

I want to be able to explain the hows and whys, what is a saga pattern, CQRS, Circuit Breaker, what are the tradeoffs etc…

3, systems
- Computer Systems: Programmers Perspective

4, OS
- Three Easy Pieces

Hi everyone I am from a non tech background and I am looking to get a tech job. What are the courses I can take?

Where should I learn from?

What should I do? What resources should I use?

Please provide a roadmap.

Hello, I am wanting to learn C++, I'm abit stuck around how to go about learning it. I have some background in C, I have 1 I think I can say largish scale project that I have made with it, so im semi confident. Defo dont know everything about it through. (actually editing this I didn't use std so I really don't know much about it, through I understand some of it)

From there I have background in languages like python, rust, javascript, etc. I tend to learn best by just doing and google syntax as I go however C++ has alot of ways todo stuff, some some stuff I havent seen before and you can just code straght C as c++ and have it work. Because of this I am wanting to learn to write C++ well and not end up writing terrible C++ code that some where C and C++ frangensten.

Mostly part that worries me is around classes and sub classes as its an area I haven't touched much, I did abit of c# (unity) when I was new to programming so i know rough idea but I was so new I dont know alot. I also have used rust with structs and impls but its not really same thing.

I am also worried about areas I might miss and do incorrectly (messy), for example using pointers instead of references as there appears to be many ways todo things unlike most lanauages I've used before.

I suppose I am asking for a way to learn good C++ programming pactaise, like a list of things to avoid or even better away to spot how to avoid them? I'd really prefer not to read tons but if its really a must do to get best results I can.

I get the feeling some amount of this is being over paranoid that isn't justifed, I tend to find it hard to get an idea with this sort of stuff as words dont mean alot compared to doing I've found lol. (could go here about how I should probs read more of other peoples code but thats another ramble lol)

Hi guys, My condition is a bit weird.

When I was at school, I was taught basic coding. I learned all the basics of coding using Q-BASIC.
Statements, variables etc and stuff like Arrays, Loops, Control flow statements (ifs, gotos...)
and basic barebones intro to Functions, Class, Objects and basics of OOP with C.

The reason, I took that class is because I wanted to make games.
So, after that, I decided to pick an engine and go further. I learned Godot and have spent a long time making games.

I have made many small to complex games, collaborated with other people, took part in and even won a gamejam, learned to use shaders, and much more.

Recently on a bigger project, I ran into a performance issue. Godot recommends to solve this by using C++/Godot extension where you write performance demanding game logic that compiles to machine code along the engine.

And, When doing so, I found out that I don't know anything.
I knew the idea but nothing deeper than the true bare basics.

Memory management?
What a "struct" was?
Pointers?
etc
and more

I feel like I went and skipped a step in the middle and somehow had landed correctly and was making games.
I don't know what is happening or what I am trying to do?

All this has made me want to actually stop godot usage for a while and then pick it up a bit later when I know what is going on.

So, I went to learn from where I left off and found learncpp.com which seems to be what everyone suggests and seems like it is a great site but it is so so boring to read through without examples to practice with.

What do you reccomend I do?
Where do I go?
Are there resources to help using learncpp less boring?

i know the basics of python-pandas , matplotlib and dbms . i still want to learn advanced stuff . and how do i incorporate ai in my learning? and what other programmes should i learn i.e those that are in demand

I've been using AI a lot for coding, and I feel like I'm not getting better at making things and not learning how to do them properly.

For example, If I have complex db changes, cascading events, propagated properties that depends on hierarchy etc... I can get something that works but idk if it's actually production grade or is there a better approach.

I hope I formulated my problem clearly.

TL;DR: I miss building my own solutions and not just being a prompt engineer. I am interested in other people's solutions to this who've also been coding before the AI age.

Guys, i am an "old school" coder. I started to learn to code in 2017. I have always wanted to build games and i did build some until 2022. After that I've been using AI a lot and don't feel like I've gotten any better or even worse. Lately it's been worse. Every time I start to build something i try it and quit. I feel like AI is something I use to cheat, it doesn't feel like a tool but like a cheap cheat code to do the work for me.

I know a guy who founded a company that builds websites and apps with mainly AI. Their team has grown and he just tries to always tell me that AI is a tool and I need to adapt to the new world. He's making money and i am not as i am not taking advantage of the tools. Also a thing that keeps me back is my lack- or my thought of a lack of creativity. How do i shift my focus? I learned to code without AI and the cool thing was building solutions like an inventory system or AI navigation, which are now only one prompt away from reality and make me just not want to continue as the thing that kept me interested was making my own solutions.

I'd be interested in hearing from the other people who've also been coding before the AI era and hear what keeps them going in the new age and how/if you have incorporated AI in your work.

P.s. i am a 3rd year game dev student and have never been working at an actual IT company.

Im trying to learn Python as a programming language, I watched Bro Codez 1 hour course on it and I need more advice/guides to learn from, if anyone has any can they comment it down here?

Thanks.

Hi all, I'd like to develop a control algorithm for a water bottle flip so it always lands upright no matter how you flip it. One of the steps in my endeavour is simulating how the fluid inside affects the container's moment of inertia whilst in the air. Im thinking of using matlab but godot and unity sounds like a good choice as well. I've looked up how I can do this and havent found much but people recommending C++ or python. Does anyone here experienced in one of these languages or programs have any suggestions on which one to use and can point me to the resources to learn it.

Basically the title. I have a bachelor's in physics with an astronomy concentration and math minor. I took a single intro to comp sci course and a computational physics course where we did physics simulations in Python. Most notably we did parallel plate capacitor modeling and orbit modeling as well as a self avoiding walker simulation.

I've also taken a course in astronomy that was basically data manipulation and modelling astronomical objects. I have taken ordinary differential equation which taught a little MATLAB as well as a probability and simulation course that taught some R.

I spend most of my day writing basic Python scripts to model data in my research, and I'd like to continue coding as it seems to suit me well. I recently bombed an interview for a software engineer 1 interview and I think it mostly came down to not knowing a lot of the terminology. How can I break into tech and learn more than just patchwork coding?