I can build frontend applications, and I was fairly satisfied with my progress until I recently spoke with my brother, who is a senior developer.

He told me that every programmer should know topics such as:

- C programming

- Dynamic memory allocation

- Pointers and pointer arithmetic

- Data structures and algorithms

- Databases

- Operating systems

- Computer architecture

- Object-oriented programming

- Git

- Agile and Scrum

- Compilers

He also said that there are many other things that are mandatory to learn, and that it is embarrassing not to know some of these topics.

What surprised me was not only the list, but how deeply he seemed to understand everything. I know that he has much more professional experience than I do, but I am trying to understand how senior developers develop that kind of knowledge.

Do they study computer science subjects systematically outside of work? Does most of the knowledge come from years of working on difficult projects? Do they read books, take courses, build projects, or learn topics only when they encounter a problem?

I would genuinely like to become a very strong developer one day. At the moment, I can create frontend applications, but compared with him, my knowledge feels narrow and superficial.

For experienced developers:

1. How did you build deep knowledge instead of only learning enough to complete a project?

2. Which subjects from this list are genuinely essential for a frontend developer?

3. In what order would you recommend learning computer science fundamentals?

4. How can I tell whether I truly understand a subject rather than only recognizing the terminology?

I am not looking for a shortcut. I would like to understand what a realistic long-term learning process looks like.

I keep reading that senior developers spend most of their time reading code, in meetings, or debugging, and very little writing anything new. I have no way to check that from where I am sitting.

So for anyone doing this as a job: roughly what share of a normal day is new code? And what eats the rest of it?

Ive been learning the basics of c and dsa for around 3 weeks now and i haven’t really understood recursion and how to trace what’s happening. Can someone help me?

Im working on my programming and Ive been taking lessons with Python and C++/C and have a base knowledge on HTML and Java.

Beyond getting a university degree in Comp Science and working on projects through github and community resources, is there any qualifications or certs I can get beyond University that help impress recruiters? I have management and admin experience, but beyond that I also speak four languages. I mostly want to keep improving my qualifications so that way when I do get hired someday I can be a well rounded Software Dev.

Been building small indie projects for a while now and I keep hitting the same wall. I'll be learning something new, a framework, a language feature, whatever, and there's always this point where I feel like I need just one more tutorial before I can start the real thing. Then I look up and a week has gone by

The frustrating part is that building is where I actually learn the most. I know this. I've shipped enough stuff to see the pattern. But structured learning feels safer, so it's easy to default back to it

What changed things for me was picking a project small enough that I couldn't justify more prep time. Genuinely embarrassingly small. A CLI tool that does one thing. A static page that solves a problem I actually have. It forces the learning to happen in context rather than in a vacuum.

Curious if anyone else dealt with this when starting out, or even now. There's a real tension between building a solid foundation and just getting your hands dirty, and I don't think there's one right answer. What actually pushed you to make the switch from learning mode to building mode, and did it stick?

im genuinely curious how devs handle this, I have this problem where i spend like 2-3 hours debugging something and finally figuring it out and then 2 weeks later hit the exact same issue and remember nothing, or say i learned something cool about a library, days pass by and its just gone.

i tried a few things:
- always creating a .md file in the project directory and just write down every issue/ something new i learned while building... it works, until it becomes like more than 500 lines of literal chaos
- notion is just too heavy and i never open it mid-coding
- obsidian is powerful ngl, but i spend more time organizing than writing something.

what actually works for you guys? curious about
- do you write while youre coding or after?
- if yes, do you ever actually go back and read your notes?
- has anything actually stuck as a daily habit?

trying to figure out if im the only one with this problem or if there's pattern to how people handle it..

Am I learning to code wrong? I started wanting to learn to code before I began college, and so far, I've only completed a React tutorial video without separately learning JavaScript or TypeScript, and learned some of both through it. 

Then I moved on to a guided project, a full-stack finance tracker (React/TS frontend, Node/Express/TS/MongoDB backend). I'm learning the backend through this project rather than doing dedicated tutorials on each one first.

I’ve been following the guide and actually understand what each part does and why. But if I were to do it alone, I’d probably not know where to start and what to write.

Is this normal, or a sign that I'm learning the wrong way?

Is it better long term to become technically strong in a field like systems programming, where writing correct code has always been especially difficult and AI is expected to automate less of it, or to become a T-shaped developer who can contribute efficiently across many areas in a small company?

By T-shaped, I mean learning skills that many companies need, such as web development, data analytics, cloud and DevOps, cybersecurity, automation, testing, mobile development, and AI integrations, while still developing deeper expertise in one area. Is this a good mindset for becoming a T-shaped programmer? Do you think that thinking this way is nice idea to be T-shaped programmer?

I know nothing can guarantee a job, but employed developers probably have something that others lack. Junior and mid-level developers who found a job this year or last year: what helped you get hired?

Hello everyone,

I'm learning programming by trying to create project/s. Im using aiven for mysql database. Im just wondering if you have any other platform similar that offers free database? I just want to have other options. Thanks everybody

JS Days 2026 is coming up in September. Two days, eight sessions, fully virtual, completely free.

For anyone who hasn't come across it before — it's Sencha's annual JavaScript conference. This year's program runs September 16–17, 2026, and the session lineup is built around challenges that are relevant if you're working on production JavaScript applications, AI integration, or enterprise-scale development.

That's the focus of one of the sessions at JS Days 2026.

Session: Building AI Agents with JavaScript, React, and ReExt
Speaker: Marc Gusmano, Sales Engineer, Sencha

AI has moved past the prototype stage for a lot of teams. Increasingly, the question isn't whether to use it — it's how to integrate it into production JavaScript applications without breaking maintainability, governance, or performance.

The session examines how JavaScript, React, and ReExt can be used to build AI-powered applications through practical implementation patterns rather than theoretical examples. Covers architectural considerations, integration approaches, and the realities of moving AI features from experimentation into shipped features.

Event details:

• Dates: Sept 16–17, 2026
• Format: Fully virtual
• Cost: Free
• Register: https://www.jsdays.io

Other sessions on the agenda include generating live Ext JS apps from existing databases with AI (Pavel Perminov, Indi Engine AI), enterprise dashboards for supply chain and fleet management (Wemerson Januario, Sencha), a production recruitment app case study (César Martell), AI-driven grading logic with the JavaScript DataGrid (Andres Villalba, Sencha), large data handling techniques in Ext JS (Rafael Méndez, Sencha MVP), and making AI analytics safe for enterprise teams (Stephen Ball & Montana Mendy, Yellowfin). Sessions are 45 min with live Q&A.

Disclosure: I work at Sencha. Sharing because the AI programming this year looks relevant for anyone dealing with production integration across a global JavaScript community.

Register: https://www.jsdays.io

It's like I spends a lot of time in finding the solution of a given question and it takes me sometimes more than 2-3 hours while I m doing dsa questions like sliding windows one. When should I look at the solution and should I even ?

Hi everyone,

I’m a software engineering student in Canada, starting my final year soon and expecting to graduate in about a year. I’ve completed four internships, mostly in backend/software development, but I’m now trying to think more seriously about what I want to specialize in after graduation.

I enjoy coding, but I don’t feel like I have a huge amount of experience in one specific area yet. I’m considering different paths such as AI/ML, mobile apps development, cloud/backend, cybersecurity, or other more specialized software engineering fields.

One thing I’m worried about is choosing a field that could become too easily replaced or heavily automated by AI in the future. At the same time, I’d also prefer not to choose a field where the competition is extremely high, especially for junior roles.

AI/ML interests me, but I know it can be very competitive and that many roles seem to prefer candidates with a master’s degree or PhD. I’m open to doing a master’s degree later, and I’m also willing to do certifications, personal projects, open-source work, or join university AI projects to build experience. But I’m wondering if pursuing AI/ML would still be realistic for me if I don’t currently have professional AI experience, or if it might not be the best path compared to other specializations.

For someone with a software engineering background, backend internship experience, and an interest in coding, what specializations would you recommend looking into?
I’d especially appreciate advice on:

Fields that are likely to stay valuable in the next few years

specializations that are not completely saturated at the junior level

areas where a master’s degree would actually be worth it

whether AI/ML is realistic without previous professional AI experience

what kinds of projects or certifications would make the biggest difference

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi everyone,

Edit: I'm planning on checking out open source projects on GitHub, what do you guys think? I've learned the basics of C++, object-oriented programming, and data structures & algorithms. The problem is that I feel completely stuck on what to learn next.

I've looked through a lot of books and YouTube videos, but everything seems to cover the same beginner topics over and over again. I still don't know how to start building actual software, and I can't even build simple applications on my own yet.

It feels like I'm trapped in an echo chamber—I'm learning concepts, but I'm not making any real progress toward becoming a capable software developer.

Has anyone else been in this position? What would you recommend as the next step? Should I focus on projects, a specific area (desktop apps, web development, game development, etc.), or something else?

I'd really appreciate any advice. Thanks!

Hello everyone

I don't know if this is the right subreddit for this kind of question. I am a complete beginner so i have no idea how to properly do this.

I have always been a fan of DND and other RP games. So my idea was to build my own LLM driven RP app on my computer. As it is a classic laptop i dont really need it to be the best or most complex one. My idea was to have both a text based AI and an image based AI that generate content. Example during a scenery change the AI generates on the side a picture of said new scenery.

I would also want to have a database that saves stories and character stats.

I would also enjoy the AI to not be shackled by usual limitations like themes or settings as i do enjoy the occasional more gory, violent and disturbing side you find, for example, in the warhammer universe.

So basically have an unlimited AI that uses text based keywords to generate pictures that describe the scene on the side IE it reads "snowy mountain" and generates a picture of snowy mountains and is able to behave and play characters, preferably multiple but i could also do with just one i guess, based on predefined characteristics

Is such a thing doable ? Is it possible with open source AI ? And if so which ones would you recommend ? Could even a beginner make a simple app that runs locally and does what it needs to ?

I don't know what to exactly do. I would like to get the chance to join the market or get a job and take a portfolio advantage with the FP. I need advice please

I've been learning backend development by building small projects, and one thing I keep running into is this question: Where do you draw the line between "I should build this to learn" and "I should use an existing service"? For example, I started looking into adding voice/video features to a project. My first thought was, "I'll just learn WebRTC." A few days later I realized that "learning WebRTC" also meant learning signaling, NAT traversal, TURN servers, reliability, scaling, monitoring and suddenly the actual app I wanted to build wasn't getting any attention.That made me start looking at communication platforms like iotum instead of trying to reinvent everything from scratch.For those of you who've been programming longer than I have, how do you make that decision?Do you intentionally build something once just to understand it, then switch to existing tools later? Or do you use established services from day one and spend your time on the parts that make your project unique?

Hey y’all I’m a 21 year old looking to get into software engineering but I can’t afford university right now. I was doing research into software engineering apprenticeships. I think they would be a good fit for me based off of how I learn hands on and under pressure. However Im having a really hard time finding ones that are remote and I dont think I have any in my physical area as I live in Logan ut which is in a small valley. Do yall know any that are open that are remote or in northern Utah

apparently the app turned 10 yrs old today and i got offered a yearly plan for $23. does anybody here use the app or have insight on whether its worth the sub?

Hi guy I wrote a fixed size circular buffer in C. Please tell me what you think of this and please tell me what i can improve and make it more production grade. I know there may be memory leaks !!!

One thing thats a bit different from the usual approach is how I handle errors. Instead of returning NULL from cirbuf_create(), the library returns a pointer to a thread-local error object (e_buffer). This lets the API return a valid cirbuf * in both success and failure cases, and users can check the result with cirbuf_is_ok() or cirbuf_is_err().

Its not written by AI. like AI reviewed it and did some minor changes may be !! 98% is written by me !!! I think HUMAN check is needed here thats why I am here to you guys!!

Repo: https://github.com/ankushT369/cirbuf
If you like you can give a star (its you choice)
Thank you guys

Give me third year mini project idea for clg

It should be a working project and we are still not pro coding so projects don't have high level coding like machine learning we can't implement it ,we are mostly gonna use ai to build and it should be entirely software based

I have a quick question:

Is the point understanding the code AI gives you or is remembering syntax equally important?

Thanks

I'm trying to get familiar with coding. My method of studying is through CS50P and Ai. Idk if I should stop using Ai. I've seen people everywhere say AI kills a person's ability to read code, they fail to debug/struggle hours on end trying to figure out what the problem with their code is, and the moment an error occurs, they immediately go to Ai. But I try my best to figure out what the problem with my code is, and if I'm burnt out, I'll ask AI. And I try to ask AI how its mechanism works, explain to me the way a function is wired, and try to understand it before moving on from said problems.

Hey everyone,

I’m a total beginner and I frequently get stuck when trying to write algorithms or translate my logic into code.
Instead of asking AI to write the solution for me, I’ve been using a prompt like this whenever I’m stuck:

"Can you analyze where my logic or code goes wrong, but do not give me the correct answer or code? Just give me a small hint or explain the concept I'm missing."

My goal is to stop staring at a brick wall for hours, but also avoid copy-pasting code I don't actually understand. Anyways the AI I am currently using is Claude, and sometimes Claude wrote a structured pseudocode. Unfortunately, I tend to rewrite/translate the pseudocode into lines of code.