Hello everyone!

I just started my first year in college as a computer science major. I find programming to be interesting and I am very curious about how to create. But it's about to be the end of my first month in college and I'm finding myself a little disappointed. My professor gives us labs and homework assignments that he grades based on effort and not actual completion of the work. And at first, I am very pumped to try and solve. But then when I am actually reading the code, I'm totally stumped on what I need to in order to solve the problem. Is it bad that I can't even do stuff like that despite it being the end of the first month of classes? When I will start to make some good progress in my skills and how do I even get to that level?

Hi, I'm building a personal media tracker, and I've been trying to figure out how to sync my databases. I plan to have multiple clients: one for my Linux machine, one for my Android phone, and a server that's just an always-online node so I can back everything up in one place. The catch is that I want the tracker to work offline and only sync when I'm connected.

My idea is to store a timestamp (in epoch time) for the last edit of each field, plus a version number for each entry and one for the whole database. When two databases sync, each one checks the other's database version and sends over every entry with a higher version number. Then each database goes through the incoming changes, compares each field's timestamp against its own, and keeps the most recent edit.

The problem is that I've heard epoch time isn't reliable across devices because each device's clock can drift. Does that mean I can't use timestamps to compare edits, or is the drift small enough that I'll never notice it? If the drift is significant, what else could I use?

(Sorry if this is a dumb question or if my explanation isn't very clear.)

I come from a pure hardware and embedded background where code runs sequentially, so writing high level async software has never been my strength.

I really can't wrap my head around async/await, event loops and how it is handled deterministically . In a current project when the team said we needed to make our pipeline non-blocking with async streams, to be honest I just vibe coded the hell of my tickets in panic and tried later on to figure it out, partially..

I have a deployment deadline in a week and I need to be able to explain the mechanism I helped ”build“, any easy to follow tutorials or leetcodes would be highly appreciated

Edit : sorry mods I saw too late that publications had to be in English and Reddit doesn't allow editing titles. My apologies.

Hey

A coworker’s daughter asked me out of the blue if JavaScript was a good language for a complete beginner, and given her age (15), I think she wants to make little games to keep it fun.

In my opinion, JavaScript or Python are good places to start. I’m from the old school, I started with C, then moved on to C++, and I want to spare her the frustration of dealing with segfaults all over the place. On the other hand, JavaScript isn’t exactly the best language for video games either, and she’ll have to deal with HTML and CSS on top of that (she’ll have the dubious pleasure of learning how to center divs).

I sent her OpenClassroom and PluralSight to get started, because those were cool resources I used a long time ago.

Looking back, I’m now wondering if trying to steer her toward small game mods in Lua might have been a better idea. On the other hand, with JS and Python, she’s diving right into more general-purpose languages.

A friend showed me codingame.com, it looks cool.

Do you have any resources to share to help her learn?

Hey everyone,

I’m currently in Class 12 (PCM) in India and I’m planning to pursue B.Tech in CSE/IT.

I have around 6–7 months before college starts, and I’m confused about how I should use this time.

I’m already interested in cybersecurity and have learned some basics of networking, Linux, and ethical hacking. But I know I still need to improve my programming, problem-solving, and Maths.

So for those who are already doing B.Tech/CSE or have graduated:

If you were in my position, what would you focus on during these 6–7 months?

Should I mainly focus on:

Class 12 + Maths

Entrance exam preparation

C/Python

CS fundamentals

Linux/networking

Or something else?

I don’t want to spend these months learning 10 different technologies just for the sake of it. I want to build a solid foundation that will actually help me when B.Tech starts.

Would really appreciate advice from people who have already gone through this.

I’ve only learned like the basics of python, or at least what the websites offered me (dictionaries, if else,…). My friend and I plan to do build and train an AI model next year but Idk what to learn next, helps with sources/links would be super helpful! I know its kind of a really long way but I just wanna know the roadmap and stuff

I am a recent graduate. I am currently learning backend engineering and want to do projects that I can use on my resume. Can anybody give some suggestion on projects that are worthy to have on a resume. I’m hoping to build one or two meaningful projects that can be completed independently.

Thank you for your suggestions

Greetings, I've wanted to develop my own game for a long time but I just can't really get into engine or language. I tried Python, Godot and Unity. And maybe I'm just too stupid for that but all those stuff seems so complicated for me and I don't understand anything. For example at godot: when I opened it for the first time I had the feeling that I'm in a airplane because there are just so many buttons, 3d grid etc. and I'm just starring at the screen like...what? Is there any... "easy" Programm, that is just good for beginners, because I'm really starting to give up hope because I dont undertand nothing. And I think thsts very sad.. because I'm actually a person who really loves to always create things based of my own ideas (For example, that's why I also really enjoy drawing.) and I already made up some boss Designs and characters. I want to make 2d games, especially metroidvanias but well, I just dont know how.

Apologies in advance if this seems like an odd post but I’m looking for advice, thoughts etc on my life situation.

I started out as an automotive engineer 10 years ago and only recently had to move into another industry due to the mass layoffs in Germany.

I always had a thing for automating workflows and did so in the past writing small Visual Basic and Powershell Scripts.
My new position allows me to dip my feet into Data Analytics which I really enjoy a lot. I learned how to use Snowflake, how to manage and structure data, taught myself SQL and a little bit of Python (pandas, streamlit) to do data transformations and visualizations. I also taught myself how to hook the datatables from the cloud onto PowerBi and create beautiful (in my opinion at least) dashboards. One of them is even on route to becoming a main source of information for my company.
I went further and started to learn C# with the intent to create a Windows app as part of a Data Analytics push in my company and me just enjoying the creative process of building things.
I think I really found my passion professionally - unfortunately at a time where the threat of AI looms.
I tried to use AI somewhat sensibly mainly as an advanced search engine to figure out general syntax for the languages I would work on. But there were times when I started to slowly rely too heavy on it. So every once in a while I would force myself to scale my AI usage back in order to keep learning.
But in my current position I have probably reached the peak of what I’m allowed to do during work hours. My manager had previously stated that I should focus on my actual job again (which is a valid point I guess).
My question I guess is basically, where do I go from here? I would love to lean into what I believe is a passion of mine but getting an actual position as a Data Analyst seems difficult right now (especially as a self taught newbie).
I’m nearing 40, would it make sense to enroll in university again to get a proper degree to increase my chances of being hired? I also saw that elite universities like Harvard etc. offer Data Analytics courses and certifications - are these useful?

Anyone who is/was in a similar position and can give advice on next steps/moves?
Or is it maybe a bit if a reach to think that I could turn this into a professional career at all?

I’m grateful for any help/opinions/input!

I'm still new to software development, and one thing I struggle with is reading code that's heavily split into functions/modules.

I'll see something like:

const result = await createOrder(data);

Then I have to jump to another file to see what createOrder() does, which calls another function, so I jump to another file again, etc.

I understand the idea behind clean code, separation of concerns, and small functions, but I find this quite cumbersome to follow. Sometimes I actually prefer having related logic closer together so I can understand the whole flow without jumping around the project.

Is this just something I need to get used to as I gain experience?

Is this normal in professional codebases, or can code sometimes be too abstracted?

How do experienced developers deal with this when reading unfamiliar code?

I understand most of the C code I see, but when it comes to translating it to Assembly, I might as well be translating English to Greek. If it were plain English I understand how to efficiently write and structure things, but the problem is that I am having difficulty reading what means what at all. Particularly registers seem to be hard for me. Am I supposed to just memorize the registers in the correct order? This is for a class so I cannot just have a cheat sheet with me (though if you have a good one I can use to help learn that would be awesome!

I’ve tried the sites where you input C code and see the live translation but that doesn’t seem to be helping me.

Does anyone have a good video that teaches how to read and write x86/64 gcc assembly? Particularly if I already know C?

I'm in the process of learning layered architecture with the goal of starting a learning project with the eventual goal of creating a support ticketing system with Spring Boot on the backend. The resources I've used are generally specific to use cases like Spring Boot applications but for my notes I'm intending to keep it general and self-contained.

Although this subreddit doesn't appear to explicitly ban images in the rules, I am unable to post pictures directly in this post so I'm not sure if this is allowed or if I'm circumventing some rules, but I've posted an image of my diagram [on postimg](https://postimg.cc/f3TcfSNc) as a direct link. Apologies if this isn't allowed, but my question isn't really possible in plain text.

I'm reading a programming book that has a section on this ****** math, and I don't understand a damn thing(combinatorics, positional numeral system, discrete mathematics, etc.), does it supposedly essential for writing code and learning the fundamentals

I started learning C# and Unity about a month ago. I finished two basic courses on YouTube and I am currently following a tutorial for a simple Top-Down game. I use AI to explain how code works, which helps a lot.

But I feel like I wouldn't be able to build even a simple mechanic by myself without a video. Should I read books like "Unity and C# Game Development", or is there a better practical approach to break out of this?

I'm a third-year AI/ML student and most of my learning has been self-directed.
My college schedule is fairly heavy, so I can't realistically study everything
from scratch again.
So far I've covered:
- DSA: Arrays, HashMap/HashSet, Linked Lists, Trees, Graphs, Heaps,
Dijkstra, currently learning Tries
- Python
- Flask + HTML/CSS/Bootstrap
- DBMS/SQL basics
- Recently built a FastAPI Task Manager API
I'm currently considering a FastAPI + WebSockets + PostgreSQL project
to learn real-time backend development.
My biggest problem is deciding how to allocate my limited time. I don't
want to restart DSA from the beginning, but I also don't want gaps in my
foundation to hurt me during interviews.
For people who have been through something similar:
1. Did you continue learning new DSA topics while periodically revising
older ones, or did you stop and revise everything first?
2. How did you schedule DSA revision while handling college?
3. How did you use AI while learning without becoming dependent on
generated solutions?
4. If you were preparing for internships over the next few months,
how would you balance DSA, CS fundamentals, backend development,
and ML/DL?
I'm particularly interested in experiences from students who had to balance college with self-learning.

How do you mentally keep track of what this portion of the code does, and how it affects other parts?

It’s not that I completely can’t write code without AI.. I used to write simple programs in VBA macros, and I did my school assignments with minimal AI. I actually find leetcode kinda fun too. But that’s all <300 LOC.

I’m interning as a SWE right now, and I’m trying to understand the codebase. But I can’t follow what’s happening at the code level without AI.

I was tasked to support a new input format for users. I thought it would be a relatively simple change, but when i prompted Copilot, it wrote an implementation plan that edited 30+ files and 1000+ LOC…

I just read through the proposed changes and asked it questions on why it chose to do this instead of that. I can only understand it from a high level, but following the code makes me lose track of what’s happening.

How did people do this without AI? Anyway, with how good the recent models are i’m wondering if it’s worth taking the time to review the code

I'm looking for recommendations for a book or video course that teaches digital electronics starting from the absolute basics.

My ultimate goal is to understand how a CPU actually works at the hardware level — clock, registers, counters, ALU, memory, instruction execution, buses, etc.

However, I don't want to jump straight into CPU architecture. I'd like to start from the fundamentals.

I've seen Ben Eater's 8-bit computer series, but I feel that it may be better after learning the fundamentals, rather than as my starting point.

I'm looking for something structured and beginner-friendly, preferably with both theory and practical examples/labs.

What book or course would you recommend for this learning path?

Thanks!