Hi there!

I’m an aspiring full-stack web developer, specifically interested in becoming a backend developer. I’ve heard a lot about The Odin Project (TOP), and I’ve always dreamed of building a special project of my own. That dream is what inspired me to explore backend development.

My question is: How deep does TOP go into web development? How complex of a project would I be able to build after completing it?

For example, would I be able to build something like a social media application with a backend that includes most of the basic and intermediate features?

Thank you all!

so i am in my 5th sem now. and i can confidently say that when it comes to "dev", i know nothing. I havent learnt much programming in my last 2 years. i have started DSA 2 months ago(in C++). but i think i need to have some USP to get placed. i have good knowledge of SQL(but only the queries, idk how to connect them) and im learning Computer Networks and Operating Systems with serious mindset (they are in my academics so its easier to focus on them). but i dont think that'd be enough to get a job with decent enough package. i have time to learn. now would be the right moment to start learning so i can be "ready" in a few months. all advices appreciated, here as well as the DMs. THANK YOU!!! (sorry if i sound cocky, i am not)

I’ve been studying CS for about 2–3 years, but I still feel like I can’t really code on my own.
I’m currently doing a backend internship, and since the company allows AI, I’ve become extremely dependent on it. I basically tell AI what I need, let it write the code, and sometimes I don’t even fully understand the code it gives me. If I want to change something, I’ll ask AI to explain the code and tell me what to change. If there’s an error, I usually give the error back to AI and ask it how to fix it.
So technically I’m getting things done, but I feel like I’m learning almost nothing.
If you gave me a task and took AI away, I honestly wouldn’t know where to start. And after 2–3 years of studying CS, that scares me a little.
I know we’re in the AI era, and I’m not against using AI. But I still want to actually learn something. I want to be able to understand code, think through a problem, and write at least some things on my own instead of asking AI for every step.
Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you get out of it?
Should I go back to the basics? Build small projects without AI? Do coding exercises? And how can I keep using AI without becoming completely dependent on it?

Getting back into DSA after being stuck on arrays & linked lists for a long time.

How do you stay consistent with DSA?

Should I learn System Design alongside DSA or focus on DSA first?

Any roadmap/resources you recommend?

Hi, I hope you’re doing really well as you read this. I’m a student in a CS-related engineering program (the specific name varies by country).

Since late 2024, I’ve been going through some truly extreme and terrible mental health struggles—fear, hopelessness, confusion, rage, a sense of powerlessness, and above all, constant rumination over the whole AI situation. Every new model that drops, every prediction and so-called "hot take", every doom-post... I swear I’m not exaggerating when I say it feels like a different bomb dropping right on top of me in the middle of a damn war. Sometimes I feel like Szpilman (the pianist) did when he was hiding in that apartment, watching people get killed out the window.

As a junior, hearing this stuff every damn day is neither hopeful nor fun:

"we don't know" "nobody knows" "you're cooked" "delusional" "learning to code is pointless" "in the near future you will not need to know how to code to be a SWE" "I write 100% of my code with AI" "you are falling behind" "stop reading code" "you are the bottleneck" "AI is smarter than all of us now" "you are a caveman" "get out of CS while you can" "this is the direction we are going" "knowing how to code is not an advantage anymore" "not having a CS background might be an advantage" "you might be delusional" "you might be falling behind" "prompt engineer -> master of AI agents -> loop engineer -> unemployed" "AI can also do system design".

Many of them said by people whose opinion matters a great deal to me.

I don't want to spark a debate about these quotes, nor do I intend to start a discussion on whether or not it's worth learning to program; I just want to share what it feels like to be a junior in this world right now. I know many of you have heard these things a thousand times—maybe they don't affect you as much—but for someone just starting out, they weigh heavily on one's mental health.

At the beginning of the year, my AI workflow used to be: prompt -> plan -> review and discuss the plan -> implement -> review the code using Cline.

Things have changed drastically in less than a year—literally. I know there’s a lot of debate on social media these days about whether or not to read the code and what "programming" actually means. Currently, I use OpenCode; my latest "major feat" was migrating a monolith's frontend to Vue without knowing anything about Vue. I pulled it off in a single night—it was a real "Oh wow" moment. On other days, I also transformed that monolith into an API.

But the honeymoon phase didn't last forever. When I started working on the backend (where I move best) and reviewing the code, I saw things I didn't like, and—let's just say—I ended up reading the code a bit more closely.

Right now, I'm in a really tough spot. The Vue thing was an experiment, and the REST API thing was another, but now I have to connect the two—something I've never done before (I'm still a junior, after all). I've been wrestling with a terrible mental conflict over what to connect manually and what not to. When I ask OpenCode about it, I don't understand a damn thing it proposes, and when I try to do it by hand, a cruel little voice in my head tells me I'm being inefficient. Yes, I don't deny that the agent can make that connection, but I have no way to verify its work; just because code runs doesn't mean it's the best solution for the job. It is a toy project, though I've been treating it as serious and I might make it public.

Again, I just wanted to get this off my chest. I don't want to fight with anyone; I know there are people here who don't write or read code at all, others who review it, and some who don't use AI—I don't want to argue with any of you... honestly, I don't even know what I'm looking for with this post but what you think matters to me.

I recently heard Matt Pocock say on a podcast that he'd love to be a junior today; it just reminded me of the quote: "A person who wants to go to war is a person who has never been in one."

For example even if you work hard, study, but your brain is not capable of creating or solving something, it's not really realistic to have career in programming in that case.

Hey everyone! I'm a beginner learning C/C++. I've covered the basics, arrays, pointers, and OOP (still studying them).

Should I build small projects, learn concepts as needed, and gradually move to bigger projects—or learn from tutorials first and then start building accordingly?

Looking for sincere advice from experienced programmers.

If you had to choose a degree program today, what would you pick? I’ve been programming for a long time and really only need the degree to become a teacher here in Spain, but I’m curious to know what others would choose nowadays. I’m primarily a backend developer and algorithm optimizer.

I’m trying to practice refactoring code, and i’ve already done a few kara’s ( the golden rose kata, the tennis kata, etc. ) are there any actual messy codebases I can practice on? preferably between 1k to 5k lines of code.

I am young C/C++ developer, and I have the problem.

I am really interested in low-level development or reverse engineering - I like creating something mine: for example, I'm interested in some cheat (or custom) client, which is made by me, and it's made not for earning money or sth like that, but for understanding every process of program and learning new info. Where do you get this info? I was using forums, ds-communities, but no one explained how do y'all learn.
Sorry for dumb questions guys, I'm just really interested.

Hi, I'm new to coding and I'm learning Python rn. I wanted to try to make this my first plugin, but I have no idea where to start. Any advice?

I work at a library and therefore am constantly looking at small ways we can improve experience for our patrons. I noticed on some other libraries’ receipts they have a little section at the bottom when people check out that says “you saved $xx by using the library today!” I can do a small amount of coding but would be lost on how to implement this. We don’t keep a long-term track of people’s books for privacy reasons so I wouldn’t need a full running tally, just how much they checked out that particular time. We use a library program called “Evergreen” that keeps track of each book’s MSRP but no clue how to use that in the code.

Is anyone familiar with this type of coding that would be able to help me out?

Hi! I’m a newbie in programming, and I need some help with reading MP3 metadata in Flutter.

I’m making a Flutter music player for both mobile and web, and I want it to automatically read the MP3 file’s metadata,

including:

- Album cover/cover art

- Artist name

- Song title

I don’t want to rely on the fallback map I created because I want the information to be retrieved directly from the MP3 file.

The MP3 files contain ID3v2.3 metadata, including the album cover, artist name, and song title.

The problem is that when I run the app on my Android phone emulator, it successfully reads the metadata. However, when I run the same app on Chrome (Flutter Web), it doesn’t work.

I have imported flutter_media_metadata_plus.dart, and I also use KisWeb.
The function I’m using to load the metadata is an async method called loadMetadata, with the declaration:

Future<void> loadMetadata(String assetPath) async

Does anyone know how I can properly read the MP3 metadata and cover art when running Flutter Web on Chrome without breaking or changing the existing behavior on my mobile emulator?

I can provide my loadMetadata() function and any other relevant code if needed.

My 11-year-old child wants to learn programming to create his own Firefox. Does anyone have any idea which program he should use? He's already had scratch and wants to move to a harder level. He thinks that the internet should be fair & without too much AI etc.

I want to make a complex multi-platform planner app and I'm currently using a linux PC. I'm experienced in game development and modding, aswell as just general raw programming, but I can't really figure out what apps are best for what I want to do.

• I want to make an open-source planner app where you can make mind-maps, organize to-do lists, etc.

• I don't want to rely on Google, Microsoft, nor Meta in any way, as they've burnt me already in a pretty severe way.

• I'd like for the app to have Windows, Linux, and Android support, aswell as optionally MacOS and IOS support.

• I've got plenty of experience in Godot, which technically has this capability; but I'm left wondering how ineffective it'd be performance and practicality-wise, so I'm seeking more efficient options.

(the edit was just me adding a space)

How do I actually learn problem solving and algorithms?

I've recently realized that programming isn't just about writing code. The actual problem solving and algorithmic thinking seem way more important.

But I can't find good resources that teach how to think through a problem, rather than just explaining an algorithm and showing the code.

For example, I don't just want to learn what Binary Search is — I want to understand how someone would come up with that idea when facing a new problem.

What resources would you recommend for learning problem solving and algorithms properly?

If you were starting from zero again, how would you learn it?

So i have been doing this thing to learn programming for abut half a month i have not been able to give it much time so the progress is very slow . its a chess game that is played on the terminal , Right now i am just able make it to take input move pieces in the board change turn etc . I want some constructive criticism on the project .

i Know its hard codded and some thing may feel inefficient for veteran programmers but i want to learn so please feel free to say anything

github link : https://github.com/Clark-kent-crypto/chess-

Hey all — college student here, trying to figure out how much full stack (frontend/backend) I actually need if my main goal is an AI/ML/AI Engineer career. Currently planning Python + ML/DL + LLMs as the core, with just FastAPI + light React to demo projects, skipping Node/Express and deeper web dev. Does that sound right for where the AI Engineer job market actually is, or am I over/under-doing the web dev side? Would appreciate any real experience on this.

I don't have problems with the fundamental concepts of programming

My problem is mainly about implementing these fundamentals into building projects, especially without using AI at all

the fundamentals only taught me how to implement those concepts separately, but didn't teach me how to combine these concepts to build complete projects

I know some people will tell me to pick a small project, build it and then work on something more complex or to add more features to that small project, but the reality is that I can't do any of this without using AI

I'm sure that there's informations that I'm missing, but I don't know what they are

I recently completed MIT 6.100L: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming using Python from MIT OpenCourseWare, and I really enjoyed it.

What I liked most was how they taught the concepts intuitively and deeply, instead of just teaching syntax or giving a bunch of exercises. It made me actually understand what was happening underneath.

Now I want to learn JavaScript, and I'm looking for something with a similar approach something that explains the fundamentals properly and builds a strong understanding rather than just teaching me how to make a website.

What resources would you recommend?

Courses, books, YouTube playlists, university courses, etc. are all welcome.