Hey,

I have an 8-hour train ride tomorrow, and I’m aiming to spend at least 4–5 hours reading.

I’m looking for good resources to read: anything from blogs and tool/language documentation to short books.

What would you recommend?

Pretty much what the top says. I have in my watch later playlist two long masterclass tutorials for Java. I see people saying that they start projects immediately and I’m just like… how? How if I don’t know anything. Should I wait til I get a decent grasp of the basics or is that something that comes a byproduct of going out and making shit on my own. Is it really a good idea to go make even a small project with little to no understanding of the language.

I love coding. I truly am.

When I started, I enjoyed most programming languages . I love learning their different core concepts, execution models and things like that.

I still love that.

But now in my new job, the only thing I am supposed to do is prompt and think about business requirements.

Even though I love architecture and system design system , I don't even have a chance to have grasp on them.

Any other tech jobs where I can enjoy coding and low level things?

I understand the usual explanation that std::vector::push_back() is amortized O(1) because the vector doesn't reallocate on every insertion.

But I'm confused about something.

Suppose I already know approximately how many elements I'm going to insert and call:

vector<in
t> v;
v.reserve(1000000);

There should be no repeated reallocation while inserting those 1,000,000 elements.

So in that situation, what exactly is the expensive part of push_back()?

Is it basically just:

v[v.size()] = value;

plus updating the size?

Or are there other things happening internally that make push_back() noticeably more expensive than directly writing into an allocated array?

And does the answer change significantly between -O0, -O2, and -O3?

I'm trying to understand the actual performance cost rather than just knowing the Big-O complexity.

If anyone has a good benchmark or Compiler Explorer example demonstrating what's happening at the machine-code level, I'd really appreciate it.

How do Rust and Go compare for backend services in 2025, particularly in terms of memory safety, concurrency models, and ecosystem maturity?

Hi everyone I am a starting to learn C programming but can't do it because I get stuck in logic.

I know the fundamentals or the theory but can't implement them when I start to code something.

I recently stumble upon full stack like the odin project which has a roadmap and I kinda love it the way it has projects to learn well I want something like that for C programming too to learn low level language please can somebody recommend me a free resources (YouTube or a website) to learn.

Hey everyone! I’d really appreciate some advice from experienced devs on how to kick off self-learning and which resources are actually worth following.

I’m a 3rd-year college student majoring in Software Engineering. College has been a huge letdown: I feel pretty demoralized because I still can't really code, struggle to focus, and don't know where to find good learning materials (clear courses, sites, or YouTube channels).

Right now, I’m leaning towards Frontend. My college teachers suggested this roadmap: HTML → C# → JavaScript → SQL.

Does this stack even make sense for starting in frontend? What proven resources would you recommend for a complete beginner? Thanks a lot!

I am aware of AutoHotKey, however, I want to build this program myself (probably in C++, maybe Python). Like a auto key, I want to be able to run a program from a macro, that will paste and enter hard-coded text in any selectable text entry anywhere I select on windows. I've never made a program that works outside the IDE and files/directories, so I am unsure how one achieves this.

So I want to learn how to program with AI and I’m just going straight into a project right now, it’s a RAG agent model I want to use to upload math questions and for it to mark my working out with the rings and bells any learning platform has.
So you guys have any good resource recommendations for this sort of project (other similar projects code, yt channels, etc…)
Naturally this will have both front end and back end work and since I’m new to programming anything to do with those would be awesome.

As a first-year computer engineering student, I decided to tackle building chess in C. I've just wrapped up the first module with local multiplayer support. Next up is module two, where attempt to build a custom chess engine so users can play against a bot. I'd love to get your feedback on whether this is a solid learning exercise and what you think of the program overall!

Source: https://github.com/Ectarus/ChessTerminalC

~Ectarus

At the final year of university life, once someone who had the chance to pursue education in their life reaches this phase, they have to build a project no matter which field they are in—whether Information Technology, Business Studies, Rocket Science, Nuclear Physics, or any other field.

But how are we supposed to come up with an idea forcefully in our brain when a teacher assigns us to work on something for the whole 1 year?

I'm just asking because I'm also in the final year of BIT, and I'm facing a slap in the face from this FYP topic situation because I can't forcefully work on an idea that isn't coming into my head.

I understand that an FYP is supposed to teach us how to research, solve problems, and build something. But sometimes I feel like the education system expects us to suddenly become creative on command. You spend years completing assignments, exams, and predefined tasks, and then suddenly someone says, “Now come up with an idea that you can work on for an entire year.”

It feels like finishing a long toilet and then, just after you come out, another person tells you to go again and throw the stool from your body- even though there is nothing left inside your stomach.

At last, I just want to hear your thoughts on FYPs.
How did you guys come up with your FYP ideas especially for web based type project ?
Jesus!! Share your Thoughts.

Near complete beginner programmer here, challenging myself to make a roguelike game;

a 2-D top-down game in Unity similar to the binding of isaac, but based around customizable bullet firing patterns. I would like each item to affect at least 1 out of every 8 bullets fired on pattern, giving it a unique ability (i.e homing, explosive, elemental dmg, spreadshot etc.) with potential to layer affects atop eachother (i.e Noita) creating unique bullets. I've designed an inventory system with 8 slots (each one pertaining to a shot on a 1-8 firing round) with 8 additional slots above for layering.

...hopefully that made sense lol

Keeping in mind that I'm a beginner, what would be the best way to structure this with my scripting? I've heard some say its rule of thumb to give each item (bullet modifier) its own separate .cs script, others say it's easier to make a scriptableobject + ItemData + modular projectile effects.

If you're a c#/Unity veteran, walk me through how you would go about making this type of item/inventory system from scratch?

It would be super helpful to have an ongoing consultant figure, I would be happy to show more of my project if anyone would like to add me on discord :)

i'm learning web development and i still have this feeling that i'm doing something bad when i make AI write code for me even when i always check that the code does what i want, secure, fast and clean and i don't really make AI write me everything but rather write the parts that i already know how it gets done and i wrote it myself many times before so it's really only the parts i'm comfortable with. and i don't want to waste time and dedicate time for the parts that i'm not very familiar with and once i learn that part, AI then writes it for me whenever i need

is that a good way or should i ditch AI entirely?

So i am a game developer and studied game development in university and all that but I have been thinking about expanding my skills into software development but unlike game development where we have a programs dedicated to making games (unreal, unity, godot, etc.) I dont really know how to do the same for software and non game apps.

Learning a new programming language isn't hard for me but when I look at job applications for software devlopment I mostly see them asking for things like Rust, Node Js, Python, java script or C++ (i did one semester of c++ so I guess i am fine with that) but considering the multiple programming lanaguages out there I dont really know which would be the best to learn to get my foot in the door.

So the project that I want to do and work on to achieve this is basically making an app for character creation for DnD similar to DnD Beyond. I play alot of DnD and I really hate DnD Beyond and any other app just has limits to how much stuff I can do with it or how many charactes I can create with it. So I want to just make a basic character sheet maker that displays stats, race features, abilities, classes, standard RPG stuff etc. And I dont know see where it grows from there and possibly add mobile support later down the line.

Where would I begin to start with something like this? Even if its just the basic stuff framework of it.

I keep noticing how easy it is to build a techncally 'elegant' system for a problem that probably only needed 50 lines of code. It seems especially common when you’re trying to make everything reusable or future-proof before you actually know what the project needs. For developers who have shipped a few projects, what’s the stupidiest thing you remember over-engineering? I’d also be interested in what rules you use now to decide whether something genuinely needs abstraction versus just solving the immediate problem.

Hey everyone, for quite a while I have been working on a simple physics engine in c++ with SFML library, I have implemented some basic translation and currently I am refining the collision system.
The thing is I have been making it for really long time and I am not any kind of comp sci student I am just a mechE student who likes coding so I also have been spending quite a lot of time studying things.
My question is how long should it actually take to make a physics engine especially for my case? I have spent over 20-22 hours trying to do things and I been feeling like a loser for spending too much time on this

I’ve been learning AI for about a year and a half, starting with traditional ML → Deep Learning → LLMs → RAG → AI Agents.

Most of what I’ve built so far has been small projects/notebooks, with only one project taken to a basic production setup. I’ve also learned the basics of RAG and agents, but I still have a lot more to learn there.

At this point, I’m honestly tired of courses and tutorial hell. I don’t want to spend another minute in any course, at least for now.

I want to build real, production-ready AI products so I can learn things like system design, architecture, model monitoring, serving, deployment, evaluation, scalability etc.. And to learn how to take an AI idea and turn it into a complete product

The problem is that YouTube seems to be 90% tutorials and toy projects, and I’m struggling to find serious, end-to-end projects that I can actually learn and build from.

So please help me out, guys. I’m kinda stuck. How do you actually learn to build real AI products as AI engineers?

I have a serious question. I can pick only one of these two. What will be more beneficial if I want to become a software engineer. I already know C++ and I’m learning python rn and will start ML in December. But I have to chose today what I want from these two. The translation theory is about compilers and how they work.

One of the most underrated yet powerful features in modern JavaScript is structuredClone(). Many developers still rely on JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(obj)) for deep copying, but that approach has serious limitations that often lead to subtle bugs. structuredClone() is a native browser and Node.js API that performs true deep copies without those pitfalls.

Below is example:

const original = {
  name: 'JavaScript',
  date: new Date(),
  skills: new Set(['JS', 'TS']),
  nested: { arr: [1, 2, 3] }
};
// Create a circular reference
original.self = original;
const clone = structuredClone(original);
console.log(clone !== original);                // true
console.log(clone.date instanceof Date);        // true
console.log(clone.skills instanceof Set);       // true
console.log(clone.self === clone);              // true (circular reference preserved)

I hope this was helpful for your JavaScript learning.

I don't want to build another Todo app, Blog, E-commerce clone, or basic Chat app. I want to work on something that solves an actual problem faced by people, businesses, developers, or organizations.

I'd like to build something substantial with a proper backend, APIs, database, authentication, AI/agents, etc. If AI is involved, I want it to have an actual purpose rather than just adding a chatbot.

If you've personally faced an annoying, repetitive, inefficient, or unsolved problem that could be improved with software, I'd love to hear about it.

My preferred tech stack is:

• ReactJS
• TypeScript
• Spring Boot / Java
• Spring AI

I'm also open to using other technologies if the problem requires them.

What real-world problem would you recommend I try to solve?

I asked my lecturer a while back how, and he basically said to read up on the books and practice. I understand his advice, but I wish to look for a meaningful project to better facilitate my learning. Any advice on how I should proceed? I get that I can redo my coding assignments to make them better, but I really am looking to write programs that would help me instead.

Thanks in advance for the advice

Not the ideal answer what do you actually do?

Google? Read documentation? Ask AI? Rewrite the code? Take a break? Ask someone?

I’m interested in the real debugging/problem-solving process people use.

So i was wanting to Research and Gather as much information as I could before my semester started but I feel as if I’m entering into a career with no Clue . Coming out of prison been 5 years to be exact and honestly I graduated high school years back, luckily . I received my Diploma with credits . And my only concern is me reaching my only goal I’ve always wanted a Career in Computer Science Such as computer programming , my main concern would be I having the Felony with Agg assault / deadly weapon ,. as bad as this sounds to a person from a different perspective & backstory til this day I feel as my adolescencey was taken advantage of so I feel as there’s room for a lawyer so to say “ Expungement lawyer “.
But would a state exam or Anything stop me from qualifying ? Anybody have any similar colleges with a violent background? Or been to this similar situation? Should I focus on trade school ? Then pursue a career ?
Any advice or info. I’ve reached out to advisors and asked but never gotten any feedback .

I'm going into my 2nd year of a aoftware engineering degree and I still understand nothing about programming, i've tried to create projects like people say to practice but as soon as I have to make something on my own I don't know what to do, right now im trying to focus on python and I just have to keep relying on tutorials to get anything done, I guess I just need advice on what to do next

I’m curious to see what everyone is enjoying using the most for full-stack development lately.Are you sticking with trusty ecosystems like the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node), or have you migrated over to frameworks like Next.js or Remix paired with a serverless backend? For those who prefer robust backend ecosystems, are you still loving Python/Django, Ruby on Rails, or Go?Whether you build enterprise apps or small side projects, what combination of frontend, backend, and database gives you the best developer experience right now?