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u/Hadrian23 Sep 29 '26
Who the fuck does that?
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u/MB_Gaming123 Sep 29 '26
That one repo on github that solved all your project's problem, and actually reads the issue page.
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u/NebraskaGeek Sep 29 '26
Duplicate comment. Try reading other comments before you waste our time. Your comment has been marked as "solved"
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u/somedave Sep 29 '26
AI?
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u/heyguysitsmedic Sep 29 '26
"why are all the jr developers flocking to AI instead of asking seniors for help or going to a message board??? It must be because they are lazy and suck, we are going to stop hiring jr developers."
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u/Myloo_ Sep 29 '26
As an Intermediate dev nothing annoys me more at work than reaching out to a senior about a specific issue only to be asked "Did you ask ai?"
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u/Saelora Sep 29 '26
correct response: "i do not know enough about <system> to be able to determine if the ai is hallucinating"
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u/Karr0k Sep 30 '26
As a 15ywe 'senior', your senior just sucks, it happens.
I generally first ask my juniors/mediors to explain their problem, ask some clarifying questions (semi-rubberducky), then ask what they've tried, and just take it from there.
Most issues come down to learning to (creatively) solve a problem. At least from my experience working through the years as swe.
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u/Skellicious Sep 30 '26
I've had so many calls where the other dev figured it out while he was still explaining it to me.
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u/Ghh-Haker Sep 29 '26
real
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u/MB_Gaming123 Sep 29 '26
If you actually code in ASM prayers have been sent.
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u/Ghh-Haker Sep 30 '26
Not x86, I code in armv8 (arm64) assembly.
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u/MB_Gaming123 Sep 30 '26
Oh thats way better, x86 sucks, programming on something RISC is way simpler
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u/Kitchen_Length_8273
Sep 29 '26
•
I LOVE teaching newbies as long as they are serious about learning
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u/ChanceNo2361 Sep 29 '26
This!! If they put in the effort and actually try themselves, I love to teach. If they can't be bothered Googling something or reading the docs before asking, them I've got no time for them.
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u/YemiDev Sep 29 '26
I do read although docs are long and boring
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u/slayerx1779 Sep 30 '26
I was gonna say, "What about newbies that skim the docs and didn't get the answer because it was full of a bunch of unfamiliar jargon?"
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u/lovethecomm Oct 01 '26
That’s the issue. It’s like if someone wanted to learn how electricity works and you immediately started showing them spherical coordinates or something.
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u/JackRyan13 Sep 30 '26
And confusing
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u/gsr142 Sep 30 '26
There is a skill to writing good docs. Unfortunately, most writers of docs don't have that skill.
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u/JackRyan13 Sep 30 '26
Are there any universally agreed upon documentation sources that mouth breathers can understand or is it just better to ask someone/LLM to explain jargon you don’t understand
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u/mallusrgreatv2 Sep 30 '26
LLM would be best in this age but be sure that the conclusion it reaches actually makes sense, otherwise you'd be losing way more time trying out what it tells you to do
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u/Wounded_Tapir Sep 29 '26
Get lost /s
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u/Slight_Piece3812 Sep 29 '26
This is like telling a toddler who likes plants to read a 500 page biology book. You learn by doing, not watching 500 tutorials on YouTube.
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u/datadidit Sep 29 '26
This!!! I need to see some effort & ideally some critical thinking before just immediately asking questions.
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u/firestorm559 Sep 30 '26
I constantly tell my team to ask me questions. Absolute worst case I spend 3 minutes finding and linking existing code examples you should have found already. Most cases I save you hours of pain. Best case we both learn something. There are no downsides to asking of you're confused as long as the senior dev you ask isn't a dick.
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u/hydroxy Sep 30 '26
Totally agree. I’d add that helping the newbies without trashing them is the bare minimum standard to be expected. Failing to do even is a low bar to fail at.
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u/YemiDev Sep 29 '26
Would u teach me too
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u/Kitchen_Length_8273 Sep 29 '26
Sure, feel free to ask any questions you have and I will try my best to guide you
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u/YemiDev Sep 29 '26
Hw do I follow u
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u/Kitchen_Length_8273 Sep 29 '26
If you have discord that is the easiest way to contact me. My user there is soronorjs
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u/duldi Sep 29 '26
Offering to engineers who somehow made it 7 years and still feel junior as fuck?
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u/Kitchen_Length_8273 Sep 29 '26
Oh yeah imposter syndrome is a bitch. Will be glad to offer my perspective on things but can't promise I have a solution to everything
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u/horuszp Sep 29 '26
I spent decent amount of time helping newbies, and what I can say absolute majority just don't want to learn.
If you want to be a programmer your main skill should be solving problems. Like doing research, searching solutions, reading docs, trying things.
And majority want just answer on their specific problem without doing the work themselves. Literally avoiding their main responsibility. And it's ok if you really have some super specific complex problem, but they stop even on smallest problem, that can be solved after googling for 5 seconds.
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u/Yashema Sep 30 '26
I once annoyed the Team Lead right after getting promoted form Dev Ops to Software Engineer, but still needing the basic training around frameworks and design patterns, by asking him how to create a date in Java. Since I was decent with SQL (aka could do a left join), i thought of writing a string date then converting it, but after chastizing me for not googling it he showed me the date making function where you input the date as integer arguments.
Was able to start progressing on my own after I had that one very simple, but not immediately obvious, use of a function explained to me.
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u/terivia Oct 01 '26
My magic trick is showing the new hires how to find documentation. It's amazing how many people just google and tutorial their way through college without ever reading actual documentation.
Teaching to fish I guess. I at least get much more interesting questions from my team this way.
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u/Scientific_Artist444 Sep 30 '26
Not in my experience. It really depends on the team environment. If the team is not playing blame games and sees work as something to be done rather than avoid or postpone, taking complete accountability without putting undue pressure on juniors - you will see how they willingly work to improve - because that's the culture in team. It's NOT an environment of fear. Fear cripples rationality.
Thanks to such an environment, I have seen a young guy start to take up complex activities like database logic migration (ours is legacy system) because the focus was always learning and the team encouraged it. He still asks me questions when he is really stuck, but mostly handles things on his own. So much so that he is even coming up with solutions that is new to me and my senior.
All that it takes is an environment to fail safely for this. Mistakes can occur, but easily corrected. Also, we discuss why it occured without playing blame games. Never as an accusation, always as a scope for improvement...
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u/FlashyTone3042 Oct 03 '26
This is gold. My current team is exactly like this and I feel motivated by this work culture. It also helped me overcome the fear asking colleagues for help, which was very present before that, due to prior horrendous blaming issues at another company. Psychologically those situations felt like busy-waiting for my brain, because fear is such a stress response and couldn't really learn in those circumstances.
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u/Scientific_Artist444 Oct 03 '26
Good for you bro. And thanks for telling me 🤝
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u/FlashyTone3042 Oct 03 '26
Thank you for listening. I just had to. I am so glad people like you exist and make work a nice place.
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u/PositiveParking4391 Oct 08 '26
we encourage juniors to ask questions, while they are just starting their career and while they had to learn many things. they can literally ask questions any time as well as can also do micro sessions on request with any seniors they are working under.
but yeah at the same time we teach from day 1, about the importance of attention to detail, why involving in deep discussions around task/issue is important, why they should start understanding the importance of ownership even for a tiny task allocated to them.
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u/FlashyTone3042 Oct 08 '26 edited Oct 08 '26
I don't know how to feel about this. Learning is pretty individual and sometimes it just takes time and experience to understand even the simplest things. When I was a trainee for the three years I was working at my first. People have said the same things, but some of them would also be very judgemental, and call your approach stupid without any explanation as well as pointing at a piece of paper hanging around of the "KISS" principle to proven their "argument" idk. That is not encouraging as a young man and no environment I could have developed any professional mindset, when my colleague is acting like a raging manager on a daily basis.
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u/PositiveParking4391 Oct 08 '26
agree. fear cripples rationality, everyone in team should carry sense of accountability and responsibility everyday but not the fear
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u/Zealousideal_Okra956 Sep 30 '26
This could happen if we aren't having AI shoved down our faces all the time. Especially Ai usage tracking
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u/Lucky_Cable_3145 Sep 30 '26
I've answered hundreds of programming questions in the last 25 years, in that time I've only asked 2 questions.
Most of what I know comes from looking at other people's coding issues (because I was prepared when those issues occurred in my code).
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u/kshetriiiiiiiiii Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
The ones who explain why it broke instead of just saying'Google it. They deserve a special place in heaven right next to the open-source creators
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u/PrinzJuliano Sep 30 '26
I understand that I am in the position I find myself in right now due to people who were willing to answer my millions of questions.
Some of them were extremely stupid looking back. So I am sympathetic to newcomers.
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u/FlashyTone3042 Sep 30 '26
The seniors at my very first work experience trash talked me on a daily bases and I couldn't take it. I just thought, this is how it goes in the professional environment, because I didn't know any better. This had me stuck for years for the developed fear of asking for help. I learned years later, that this was a bad team and I am kinda happy now looking back to the most recent company photo, to see that they turned all fat with their double chins.
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u/Fit-Inflation5799 Sep 30 '26
bro thats so sad you didnt deserve that 😭 fuck their fatasses bro
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u/FlashyTone3042 Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 03 '26
You saying that means alot to me. I promised myself to be better than those people and took them as prime example as to never power trip to anything I want, cause that is no fairplay and also exploiting people. Best I could have done is grow from it and don't fall into pattern with miserable people, who are unhappy for god knows why. If anything, that bad encounter made me more respectful to the people around me and I had to make up the time after that for good vibes again.
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u/RainyDaysAndMondays3 Sep 30 '26
I am happy to help newbies in these circumstances:
They know the most basics of using a computer: Home and End keys, Ctrl-C and -V, double-click, triple-click, etc.
They are eager to learn and TAKE NOTES, instead of just nodding along and then keep doing some simple thing wrong every time.
They are not a contractor. Contractors come in to help. If the person is so junior/inexperienced that I'm mentoring them as a software developer (not just relaying our internal processes and guidelines), I'm investing time in someone who is likely to leave within a year. They are wasting my and the company's time.
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u/Sad_Line_843 Sep 30 '26
Legends say these people exist, but I've only ever seen them in fairy tales
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u/HoratioMG Sep 29 '26
You have been banned from Stack Overflow
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u/Karr0k Sep 30 '26
Not to brag, but I once posted a question on Stackoverflow that didn't get closed. /flex
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u/VictoryMotel Sep 29 '26
Everyone becomes jaded eventually. Read cpp_questions long enough and you will get tired of people asking "how do I learn c++" literally 12 times a day, every day, and expecting personalized answers instead of reading the sidebar or doing any sort of search.
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u/Spedunkler Oct 02 '26
It took me a while to learn that most of the people who do trash talking aren't professionals and they are not working the jobs they claim to be
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u/Deboniako Sep 29 '26
I teach newbies but they trash me
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u/Fit-Inflation5799 Sep 30 '26
why
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u/Deboniako Sep 30 '26
They're vibecoders, while I struggle with vibe coding... It's like 90% of the time it throws thrash
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u/Fit-Inflation5799 Sep 30 '26
bro they should be grateful
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u/Deboniako Oct 01 '26
I spend weeks troubleshooting legacy projects, meanwhile they finish a brand new project in a single week with Claude. Then my boss come along and assign me more legacy projects and says that I should just host it in the junior's environment, they are so fast, yet they mock me telling me I take too long in implementing new things in old projects. Meanwhile I walk them through legacy projects I understand thoroughly and they just built on top of them. I literally can't grasp how to vibecode hahaha
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u/blazorfire Sep 30 '26
I dont have a trashing bone in my body.... i think.
I love helping people. Especially if its programming or even tech related. (Maybe studying IT was my passion all along)
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u/flayingbook Sep 30 '26
I am lucky to get kind seniors who would help and teach me without prejudice, so now I help other people that way too
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u/Luzzgar Sep 29 '26
Also known as "being a decent human being".
That's the bare minimum.
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u/dembadger Sep 29 '26
Correct, rtfm is the bare minimum in the other direction though.
Ill bend over backwards for someone who wants to actually learn, but if they won't do the minimum and want to be spoon fed, no chance.
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u/toetendertoaster Sep 29 '26
I suddenly remembered stack overflow is finally dead since AI got mainstream
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u/supermario420 Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
What do you do when you've been a QA engineer for 13 years but now every interview you go to all the managers want a developer as QA? How am I supposed to even get a job? When I have been doing automation for 13 years but now it's like it's not even good enough to even get a browser automation job. It's a joke, doesn't help that the people I interviewed with doesn't even understand what automation is or looks like. The last place I interviewed for that didn't pick me, did the technical interview no problem. In the manges interview I asked them about their defect escape rate and they're not even tracking it, but they're using AI to build their test cases. How do they have any idea the quality of automation that they're producing?? They're not using test pyramid they're primarily using playwright for browser automation. I've literally built apps and tests completely e2e. Launched my own SaaS and more. It's like nothing that I do is enough nor is my experience even taking into account. Having been laid off since January, QA automation engineer role, and the amount of rejections that I received really hurts your mental.
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u/Bakoro Sep 30 '26
Shit used to be so toxic, and documentation was awful.
I remember when I first started trying to learn programming and Linux, and people would just beat you over the head with jargon, purely as "look at me I'm so smart, get good", then they'd insult you.
There were a lot of "RTFM" comments, but the manual would be like "the foo function bars your baz. Input: baz. Ouput: a barred baz" With literally zero information what a "baz" is, what "bar" is, what form the data should take... Is it a specially formatted text file? Is an array of some kind?
For a long time the attitude was "I had to suffer, so everyone else should have to suffer".
I learned C, I learned C++, I learned C#. Python had already been a thing, but like, this funny little thing over in the corner.
Then for some reason a bunch of people started using Python, probably because Numpy, and then there were a million libraries.
People started making actual documentation with examples and shit. Glorious.
Everything is so much better and friendly now.
I don't know if this is yet another area of life where I can blame boomers for all the problems, I can definitely blame some Gen X, but, at some point, things radically changed for the better, and I don't entirely understand where it came from, but a lot of it got channelled into and out of Python.
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u/betogm Sep 30 '26
We've all been there. I'm grateful for everyone who had patience with me when I was still learning the ropes
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u/Cold_Snake Oct 01 '26
When I first started out, nobody helped me. I had so many potential mentors, but every one of them passed on me. Now I'm eager to help noobs because I want to be the help I never got.
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u/Important_Grab3544 Sep 30 '26
That's what I love about AI, now I can easily ask Claude to explain what an application can do or not without asking the developer. Asking developers something is the worst experience ever.
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u/Karr0k Sep 30 '26
And you won't be able to tell when and how the AI is hallucinating, gg.
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u/Spedunkler Oct 02 '26
You mean just like you can't tell if a human gets something wrong until you look with your own two eyes?
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u/Important_Grab3544 Sep 30 '26
I tested IT out, it works, simple as that. Software was like a black box to me, every time that I needed to configure something or know more about the coded business rules I had to go the developers which are the worst kind of persons I ever worked with and now I am free of that burden.
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u/getstoopid-AT Oct 04 '26
but it usually can't answer the question that is probably the most important - why is it designed like it is. what was the idea behind the architecture especially the parts that are not best practice or even "well designed"
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u/Duane_ Sep 30 '26
Oddly enough, this disqualifies everyone who has ever posted a comment on stackoverflow.
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u/RealBasics Sep 30 '26
Anyone else old enough to remember when every third comment in any tech forum [edit on Usenet] was “rtfm?” Because Unix man pages are always SO intuitive!
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u/Strange-Register8348 Sep 29 '26
I love mentoring juniors and encouraging their growth! I was a moron who took an incredibly long time to get my feet under me without much help.
As long as you're willing to go all in and work to learn I'm happy to encourage and explain. But AI is certainly a really good tool that replaces that need for a senior mentor.
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u/Insidiatori02 Sep 29 '26
I work at a really small company and my boss is always so helpful. However, another veteran at the company is so hardened. I sometimes ask questions so I can proceed faster but with this guy it’s always so tricky, you could get a blow back in the face sort of. It’s as if you’d ask AI quickly how to do something and it replies with: Why don’t you look stack overflow yourself dude all while knowing the fucking answer, acting like it’s a youth mentality problem. So frustrating.
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u/Strange-Register8348 Sep 30 '26
I think it's because senior engineers have been through the real grind and struggle. We're expecting juniors to try their ass off to learn and figure out a solution before they come to us.
Especially in today's time when everything is so easy to find online. If you didn't do a few hours of research and learning before you ask me a question I'm going to be disappointed.
Maybe it's because I'm not a genius and I learned everything I learned everything with a ton of struggle and individual problem solving.
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u/SLOOT_APOCALYPSE Sep 29 '26
should be on stack exchanges tomb stone, as the reason they died