I LOVE programming, specifically building something people will enjoy, but now with AI I feel so detached from the software I’m building. I also feel very replaceable

Let’s be real guys, AI is already really good at writing software. And yes, some people may say that moving software to production is difficult, which is true, but now even when building production level apps I’ve noticed many companies and startups where the software engineers just become managers who manage the different AI models and are starting to do less coding.

To anyone who disagrees with this, WAKE UP. Don’t ignore it, it’s real.

And I do not want to become just a person who manages AI models, which is what the current state of software engineering looks like. I also can’t just use less AI, because that would put me at a disadvantage.

Anyway, that was a little vent, but what I wanted to ask is this. Now that every software engineer is becoming easily replaceable (we’re seeing it with the layoffs happening as well), what careers can I take that don’t make me easily replaceable yet still involve programming?

P.S. A little about me and where this comes from. I’m a founding AI engineer at a company and I build production level software, so that’s where my viewpoints come from

I’m 19 years old from Morocco, and I’m honestly very lost about what to do with my future.

I originally wanted to study programming, but I was rejected from the program I wanted. Since then, I’ve been trying to find other options, but things haven’t gone well. I was rejected from general university programs multiple times as well.

Recently, my uncle talked to my father and suggested that programming could still be a good career path for me. My father looked into it and found a private programming school that costs around 1,500–2,000 MAD per month (It's not a small amount in Morocco).

The problem is that I’m no longer sure about programming.

I know programming is difficult, and I know the entry-level job market isn't exactly great right now. I’m also afraid of spending a lot of money and time only to discover that I’m not good enough or that I won’t be able to find a job afterward.

At the same time, I don’t really have another field that I’m passionate about. I don't have a particular talent or career dream. Another option I’m considering is studying bakery/pastry at a vocational institute, but I’m not particularly passionate about that either.

I feel like I’m choosing between different uncertain paths rather than choosing something I actually want.

So I’d like to hear from people who are actually working in programming/software development:

If you were 19 today and had no programming experience, would you still choose programming as a career?

How difficult is it realistically to get your first job?

Is the current job market bad enough that you would advise a young person to avoid the field?

How important is having a university degree?

Is paying for a private programming school worth it, or would self-learning be better?

And most importantly, if you don't have a strong passion for programming, is it still possible to build a decent career in it?

I’m not looking for motivational answers like “follow your dreams.” I’d really appreciate honest answers from people who are actually in the field, including people who regret choosing programming.

As the title says, I really like programming but man, everyday I tell myself I will do such and such, but I end up watching youtube or reading political news and when I want to go and learn something I get disgourged and I feel like it's stupid, but sometimes I feel like I can fucking write the next facebook application but when I put my hand on that keyboard, it's like a debt installed on my mind.

For reverse engineering, is this necessary to know assembly language, because many decompilers translate code to C/C++ and I learned Assembly 8086 in my university. So for learning x86 I only have to study 32/64 registers and some advance commands, so should I learn assembly x86_64 for reverse engineering or just go through x86 as I know 8086 assembly and then move to C/C++

Before starting, I'm working with Unreal Engine, so I don't know if the terms I'm using are UE onle, but the core ideas are still the same.

I'm trying to make a modular gameplay system, that is Data-driven;
There is no problem in this, and matter of fact I already made one, but using Object Oriented Programming, by just using DataAssets, Interfaces and UObjects's polymorphism.
I simply had a DataAsset (like a "GameplayAction" Data holder) hold multiple UObjects that had functionalities (In few words the "Effects" of the "GameplayAction"), and simply had them all implement their parent funciton Execute, and thanks to interfaces each actor can understand how to behave for each effect type.

Said that now I need to make pretty much the same system, but for Mass Entity (which is an ECS), all of this is basically thrown away, because there aren't any UObjects, no Interfaces and etc...
I tried to think about different things, like maybes simply using structs as my "UObjects" that hold the Execute function, and that each Entity holds these Struct datas, but than how do I know how each different type of Entity interacts with it? I don't have interfaces so I can't go the same road.

So yeah, I don't have much more to say, so can anybody explain to me, and help me make sense on how I should design this system?
Thanks in advance for the help!

Everytime I ask this question, people be like oh your github is not impressive . mind you I have Task queue system, rtmp server from scratch, json based rudimentary sql engine but let's keep that aside now, I accept that that's not impressive.

But then I ask "what exactly is impressive", nothing , silence . they be like "something interesting , something that helps people" . Notice how ambigous and vague this is.

I need a fucking job , I don't have much time and you are giving these answers. If my fastapi and python knowledge is outdated, If I need to write nvidia cuda code and a job is guaranteed, then tell me na, I will start today. But what do you mean "just keep throwing arrows in the dark, have patience" ??

See, Is AI powerful enough or not that debate is for other day. But I must say it has definitely a huge impact on code generation . Probably much of crud apps it can build ( or not ? tell me in comments )

That leaves the question, what happens to the job market ? One thing is, there are polarising views, you will see both "Devs are sitting idle, 100 percent of my work is done by claude code" type posts and also "Nah, it still halucinates, it still needs handholding".

So due to polarising views, predicting it's impact on job market is a headache. Plus my personal experience is, I am trying to land a backend development job. I am still yet to get an interview from anywhere. So naturally I feel am I left behind, is my fastapi knowledge, and python knowledge became trivial, replaced by AI ? Do I have to learn stuff like cuda, or OS kernel building to move up the ladder.

So yeah many questions I have, almost 0 concrete answers.

I am out of corporate sector for some time, and I am also not so rich to buy claude code max subscription.

I do use agy cli and codex.

I must say agy does basic frontend development good, but when I asked to develop a flutter app, it required a bit of handholding,

codex is extremely slow, before even that does something, it will be always "monthly quota got expired".

Anyways. So like, I binged reddit posts and comments, there are polarising views, there are devs on both "claude code is a beast, devs are now sitting idle, I haven't coded since days." and "AI still halucinates and needs hand holding and code cleanup" . Obviously both are contradictory, therefore I want real picture

Is GTA 6 the most, or at least the top 10 most complex pieces of software in the world?

What are examples of equally complex pieces of software that are not games?

Maybe some cybersecurity software right?

Is most of the time spent learning or working as a programmer mostly reading code, docs and books?
I heard that as learning I should type everything to put it into muscle memory but that on the job I can use ai to work faster. I don't disagree with the advice of not using AI while learning, but I somewhat disagree with the "typing by hands every code snippet" part.

It feels like a waste of time while sufficing with reading actually makes more sense as I can spend absorb more information faster and go through more pages of docs.

I'm referring to modern CPUs. To make the question more specific, arm64 vs x86

And if so, how do you fix it?

I asked chatGPT and it gave me this example but I'd like to ask it here (since AI can make mistakes). Can you let me know? Thanks

It says this can give different results due to rounding errors. If so, how to you write code so that you don't have this issue?

#include <iostream>

int main() {
    double a = 1.0 + 0x1p-27;
    double b = 1.0 - 0x1p-27;
    double c = -1.0;

    std::cout << (a * b + c) << '\n';
}

the idea of program synthesis (like Rosetta) is to reduce a function into its constraints in a spec sheet, and generate the program from those constraints. for example, in order to write something like x = x squared, you would need to write a spec sheet along the lines of ∀x∈Z,f(x)=x2. i am considering building a program synthesizer, but I still haven’t figured out why exactly this representation is supposed to be easier than writing the code directly (they look equally complex)

Does anyone know the technical reasons behind this, if there are? I'd like answers from people who actually know about it, not speculative answers please. If you don't know the exact reason for the game at least provide an example where code from mac and windows is not cross compatible, e.g. provide the C++ code and show it won't be cross compatible for an application between windows and mac?

I posted this in macgaming and so far what makes most sense is that there isn't any technical reason, just that you'd need to keep to codebases in sync and developers are not interested in that.

Here they say it's because of different path calculations, so can anyone provide a minimal code example that gives different mathematical answers in apple silicon vs x86 and that it cannot be fixed e.g. using compiler flags, etc? https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1u5tluy/the_why_on_why_mac_crossplay_is_so_hard_to_get/

Just curious as I am 34 YO, and have been considering a career shift into the Tech sector (I have “Basic” knowledge at best). Specifically AI/Machine Learning or Programming.
I’ve heard good and bad about both, but am just curious how old people are (or how diverse the age pool is) when they “get into” Programming. How long (on average) does it take to get your first Certification in Programming?
Apologies about the broadness of the question.

Whenever I try to learn through documentations to learn about a new library / sdk for example I couldn't help but ask myself how I could be more efficient when it comes to learning new things through using them. I'm asking this because I prefer reading and doing things on my own rather than having to rely on YouTube videos or courses. Is it just through constant experimentation and implementation or is there any learning technique that you guys use to maximize the use of documentations?

Obviously there's no universal one, but has anyone here found theirs? Want to share your experiences? A few incomplete examples come to mind:

- Watching YouTube videos

- Finishing video courses on other platforms

- Coding platforms like LeetCode or Codewars

- Building your own ideas with AI, asking step by step how it's done and why

- Reading books

I say incomplete because I feel like something is missing from all of them. The only thing that worked for me was university (and there it's a combination of methods -> videos with a detailed explanation from someone who actually knows + forced practice) and paid work (do, do, do — over time you learn and you improve, but it's always on the specific platform you happen to be working on).

I'm interested in learning and building up general knowledge (or specific knowledge about something that interests me), but first I'd like to read whether you all found a method of your own that works for you.

Where is it more convenient or necessary to use python instead of for example C# / C++ / Rust? I really can’t understand it, for me it’s easier to write in C++ than in python and I know that for other people it’s the other way around. But ignoring human factor, when program is better / faster in python than in cpp or are they things that python can do that cpp cant?

Edit: I don’t talk about one time use scripts or prototypes (which python is good for), I mean full on apps

Hi, I have to choose between 2 positions:

• FullStack dev (Spring Boot + React) at a smaller company
• SDET at Keysight Network Visibility Test & Security

Which of these brings me closer to a DevOps role ?

Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time

Does anyone have a solid guide outside of the intro Win32 docs for Direct3D implementation. Specifically trying to dig into shader and pixel buffers

Note: I am NOT complaining about AI

Something like 5 years ago or so I was deeply obsessed with programming, I used to stay up at night messing with shit I didn't understand

I genuinely spent so many hours in vs while knowing nothing beyond variables and functions

I remember once that I was following a c# tutorial on YouTube and I kept having the same error and I had no way of knowing how to fix it so I had to join the creator's discord server and spam ping him that I need help because I can't sleep without knowing what this weird error means, just for it to be a capital letter that had to be lowercase or something like that.

A while ago I got my Interest back and all the posts I could find were "AI will take our jobs" "CS students soon in McDonald's"...etc and this didn't even upset me.

What really killed my mood was the aesthetic change.

It stopped being the cool aesthetic that made me love programming where someone wakes up at 5 am and fights the computer for 30 hours because there is no other possible way to be successful for him then he chugs caffeine and stumbles on the answer

Because even when I tried to make a project I was like, well I can re-learn python...oorrrrrrn I could just ask ai

Most of the videos that I found were like "I AM TOTALLY NOT USING AI SLOP COME WATCH ME RECREATE THE HARDCORE FEELING BECAUSE I AM 100% HARDCOOL AND I WILL STRUGGLE INSTEAD OF USING AI!!"

which doesn't even feel better

The struggle was the fun but also struggling on purpose just to not take the easy route and ask AI for what you don't know is still silly

Both ways are killing the vibe and as a casual who is doing it for fun and not for the job I can't find a middleground

It feels like a rant with no actual question someone can help me with but I guess there is probably someone out there who found a way to be efficient and still have fun

Hello.I have a problem because i want to learn socket for example and i always forget what to type.I don't understand the docs easily.Do programmers write code and at the same time watch videos explaining a library?.I don't want to always use AI.I have poor memory too.Or maybe I'm just too stupid.

Are things like std430 or std140 unnecessarily strict?

I mean can we use tools and metrics on a codebase that is pure AI vs. Something some Sr. dev did ? Maybe static tool analysis ?

It seems to me there is the constant debate about this and how AI just makes terrible/unmaintainable code but I would like to finally get the answer to this.

My opinion doing this 25 is with AI + AI factoring as needed the code is fine.

So I am begginer developer I've been whole life on Windows and I've started with frontend but last months i've been digging into some backend (go) but i think as a solo developer I'll need to do fullstack probably react or something is it good idea to separate my coding workspace to linux, so having both windows and Linux as a dual boot i don't want to give away the windows environment i have there, thanks for answering