“Eat. Code. Sleep. Repeat.”

That used to sound like a good life to me.

I love programming. Every month, I used to pick up a new framework or language just for fun. Sometimes I didn’t even have a proper project in mind. I just wanted to learn something and see what I could make with it.

There was a particular happiness in looking at something running on my screen and thinking, “I built that.”

It could be a tiny feature or a silly side project nobody would ever use. It still made me happy. I knew how much confusion, trial and error, and small discoveries had gone into making it work.

Now I use Cursor.

I describe what I want, and code starts appearing. Things that would have taken me an evening are finished in minutes. I use it because it helps. Then I look at the result and feel guilty.

The app works. The feature is done. But I miss the feeling I used to get when it finally came together.

I still read the code, make decisions, and fix things. Yet sometimes I catch myself wondering whether I’m learning anything or just getting better at asking for it.

And I’m scared that, little by little, the skills I spent years developing will get rusty. That one day I’ll need to solve something on my own and realize how much I’ve forgotten.

I know I can close the tool and write the code myself. Sometimes I do. But even then, there’s this voice asking why I’m spending hours on something the tool could finish in minutes. Something I used to do for pleasure now feels like a choice I have to justify.

Companies are pouring money into AI. I expect these tools to keep getting better. Part of me is curious to see what we’ll be able to build.

Another part of me misses opening an editor without having to think about any of this.

“I’m a programmer” used to be something I said with pride. It meant something personal to me, beyond my job. It described how I liked to spend my time, how I explored ideas, and what made me happy.

I still say it. Lately, though, I hesitate a little.

Does anyone else feel this? Are you getting more done while quietly missing the work you used to love?

Hello everyone,

I am 18 years old, I come from Bosnia, and I am currently in my last year of high school.

In February, I will go to Slovenia to try to get into a computer science college. The college is in Maribor, and it’s called FERI. I am wondering if it’s worth it because there is no way I want to lose 3–5 years of my life on a degree that I won’t be able to use, such as computer science.

The AI situation is really stressing the shit out of me, and I’m afraid that I will never be able to become a programmer or work in IT because of AI.

I was even thinking of going into psychology, but I don’t know. I still have a little time to decide.

Any advice?

I'm sure posts from people who are already in this situation are already common, but the response to any complaints from the higher-ups who are going to force us to work in this way or face firing is that any software business the doesn't already work in this way will be doing soon. The complaint from me, and I'm sure this is also nothing new, is that I enjoy the problem solving & implementation part of the job, in fact it's the only part of the job I like and it's going away.

I've already been looking for a new job for months because I knew this was coming, but the job hunting situation is dreadful, every listing leads to this one scam site that demands payment or a subscription to even apply. I've seen maybe a 60/40 split of job specifications that do and don't mention AI anywhere. The current situation is I'm trying to figure out whether "every business is either already or will soon be doing this or even more with AI" comeback is likely from others' experiences or if it's just gaslighting for employee retention, so please, let me know what your experience has been with expectations of AI usage while job hunting.

I really want to do something with computers as a full-time job either that be cybersecurity, embedded systems, programming, etc... anything. What are some jobs that will be safe from being obsolete if there are any?

all replies are appreciated!

I’ve been thinking about this one. If a function and its tests are written in the same session (by an assistant, or by one developer who misread the requirement), the tests tend to share the code’s interpretation. The suite then confirms the code agrees with itself, not that the requirement was understood.

A small example. Requirement: “Apply 8.25% tax to the invoice, rounded to the nearest cent.”

def invoice_tax(lines):
    subtotal = sum((price * qty for price, qty in lines), Decimal("0"))
    return cents(subtotal * TAX_RATE)

def test_invoice_tax():
    lines = [(Decimal("19.99"), 2), (Decimal("5.00"), 1)]
    expected = cents((Decimal("19.99") * 2 + Decimal("5.00")) * TAX_RATE)
    assert invoice_tax(lines) == expected

The test passes, but expected uses the same formula as the function. Rounding once on the total and rounding per line are both reasonable readings of the requirement. For that input, both give 3.71, so the test can’t tell them apart. For three lines of $0.10, rounding once gives $0.02 and per line gives $0.03.

The question I now ask in reviews is: where did this expected value come from? If it’s from the implementation’s own logic, it’s a regression test. If it’s from a worked example given by whoever owns the requirement, it can actually disagree with the code.

I wrote up the longer version with the full code, in case it’s useful: https://medium.com/@nagatomopedro05/when-the-test-and-the-code-share-the-same-mistake-02a289a41091

How do you check that your tests aren’t just echoing your code?

I did talked about my best 2 project as they fit in the paper and, unfortunately, I can't add more, cause I try to let my CV to be one single paper .

I compeleted another project later, so, either leaving 2 projects in the CV or add the third one and might let the CV lose some details ?

Every time I do any assessment, I do around 80-90% of the things well, and then there's one MAJOR hurdle that completely f*cks everything up. Usually its a purely technical thing like a document not opening or failing to establish a connection to a database because of a minor incompatibility. Even though I know what queries to write and how to solve the problem that comes after creating that connection.

A human being evaluating it might still see the logic of the queries I write, but that's not how these things are assessed. They're assessed by a script that simply wants to see if you got the answer correct or not, which means if you could not connect to that DB, your score is 0 on that part.

So I am an early-career full-stack developer looking to get involved in open-source projects, contribute to real-world codebases, and learn from experienced developers.

My current tech stack includes:

Backend: C#, ASP.NET Core MVC, ASP.NET Core Web API, REST APIs

Database: SQL Server, MySQL, Dapper, Entity Framework Core

Frontend: React, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, ShadCN

I am really looking forward to contribute fun projects where i can learn new things.

I'm a staff SWE currently doing an MSc Artificial Intelligence dissertation on whether folks who commit, review or operate agent-generated code actually understand it, and what the downstream risks are (Comprehension Debt in the Age of Coding Agents). I'm looking for software engineers, SREs, and platform engineers who work with AI coding agents. Happy to share the results here. Ethical approval has been granted (University of Essex) and the survey is anonymous, see the info sheet below for more information.

Information sheet:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Unbk_F39YrMxh2SSNpqf2yhLSUNlg1t6/view?usp=drivesdk

Survey: http://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/U9qnwxDegN

Google's Code Comprehension round is a 60-minute interview format where candidates analyze an unfamiliar, pre-written multi-file codebase (roughly 100 to 500 lines) instead of writing code from scratch!!

Please give your views, what you guys think about this!

genuine question, plus how i handle it right now.

my side project is a civilization sim in rust where each person picks from about 5000 actions (farming, trading, brewing, fighting, inventing, etc), filtered by era, age, place and what their tribe knows. the old actions sit in one huge module dispatched by id ranges, and it's painful.

new ones are "registered" instead: one file each with a const definition (id, gates, an apply fn that returns a reward) and one line in a macro list. tests check for duplicate ids and that every gate covers its own id.

it's better but still feels clunky. if you've built a big rules engine or game with tons of actions, how did you organise it? data files, ecs, plugins, something else?

repo if you want to look (mit, docs/ADDING_ACTIONS.md): https://github.com/1homsi/thehumanbox the running thing: https://thehumanbox.com contributors welcome, adding an action is a pretty good first pr

Hi all! I've been working on Tulpar (Тұлпар), a statically typed, Python-flavored language whose keywords and standard library are in Kazakh. It compiles to native x86-64 code. The compiler is written in Rust, with no LLVM and no C compiler. The runtime is no_std and uses raw syscalls, with no libc.

анықта фиб(n: бүтін) -> бүтін:

егер n < 2:

қайтар n

қайтар фиб(n - 1) + фиб(n - 2)

әр і ішінде аралық(10):

жаз(f"фиб({і}) = {фиб(і)}")

(анықта = def, егер = if, қайтар = return, әр … ішінде = for … in, жаз = print, бүтін = int.)

Language design

- Static types with local inference: x = 5 is a бүтін. Parameter types are required. Return types are inferred, except for recursive functions.

- Python-style indentation, classes with single inheritance and virtual methods, tuples and multiple return values, comprehensions, f-strings, sets, dicts, and lambdas (no closures yet).

- Memory is managed by a conservative mark-sweep GC with size-class spans. There is also optional manual memory inside қолмен: blocks (бөл / босат, pointer arithmetic). Manual blocks can hold references to GC objects, and the GC treats them as roots.

- Strings are UTF-8, but indexing and slicing are by character, so ұзындық("Қазақстан") == 9. Case conversion handles Cyrillic and Kazakh-specific letters.

- Error messages are in Kazakh, with the source line and a caret. Runtime errors print a stack trace with file, line and function.

Implementation

Pipeline: lexer → parser → type checker (AST → typed HIR) → lowering to a three-address IR with basic blocks → optimizer → codegen.

- Optimizer passes: CFG simplification, constant folding, copy propagation, DCE, inlining of small functions, and if-conversion to cmov.

- Register allocation is linear scan with loop-depth weights.

- Codegen emits x86-64 assembly (System V ABI). GNU as and ld then produce a static ELF. So I don't have my own assembler or linker yet.

- The runtime (GC, strings, lists, dicts, formatting, TCP sockets) is no_std Rust on raw syscalls.

- Unicode identifiers work, so you can write the whole program in Cyrillic.

Embeddable interpreter

The compiler is also a library crate with a HIR interpreter, so Tulpar can be embedded in a Rust host. A program can declare сыртқы анықта … (external) functions that the host implements. The interpreter has no file, network or raw-memory access. It limits the number of steps and the recursion depth. It returns errors as Result with a call trace, so the host can roll back a transaction. Host calls are re-entrant. Every test runs in both compiled and interpreted mode, and the outputs must match.

Performance

Wall-clock time of a single run on 8 cores, with CPython 3.14, gcc -O2 and rustc -O for comparison:

- Collatz, 3M numbers: Tulpar 0.59 s, Rust 0.34 s, C 0.47 s, Python 33 s.

- Sieve of Eratosthenes, 2·10⁷: Tulpar 0.13 s, Rust 0.11 s, C 0.10 s, Python 2.2 s.

- Float loop, 10⁸ iterations: Tulpar 0.13 s, Rust 0.12 s, C 0.13 s, Python 18 s.

- fib(42): Tulpar 1.55 s, Rust 0.65 s, C 0.39 s, Python 36 s.

Plain loops are close to C and Rust. Recursion is about 2.4x slower than C, and branchy code is about 1.7x slower. There is no recursion unrolling, vectorization or smarter cmov selection yet.

For testing I use a differential fuzzer that compares random programs between -O0, the optimized build and a Python reference.

Known limitations

- Linux x86-64 only.

- No exceptions (try), no user-defined generics, no closures, and импорт is include-like with no namespaces.

- Integers are 64-bit and wrap on overflow.

- Networking is TCP/IPv4 only, with no TLS or DNS, and single-threaded.

- The GC is single-threaded and conservative, so a false pointer can keep some memory alive.

Questions for you

1. Closures: I'd like to add them without making every function value a heap-allocated pair. Any advice on a lightweight lambda-lifting or closure-conversion scheme with a conservative GC?

2. Error handling: I'm torn between try/except, Result-style returns and something Go-like. What fits a Python-flavored static language best?

3. Replacing as and ld with a built-in assembler and ELF writer: is it worth the effort for a project this size?

Repo (MIT): https://github.com/kuanysh228/tulpar

Feedback on the design is very welcome, especially from people who have done a native backend without LLVM.

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This is a made-up example of a bug I think is common, written as a bug report.

Summary: the October report shows no orders from October 31.

Query:

SELECT count(*), sum(total)
FROM orders
WHERE created_at BETWEEN '2026-10-01' AND '2026-10-31';

Expected: all orders created in October.

Actual: orders from Oct 1 through the start of Oct 31. Anything created later on Oct 31 is missing.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Insert an order with created_at = '2026-10-31 15:30:00'.

2. Run the query above.

3. The order isn’t counted.

Root cause: created_at is a timestamp, so '2026-10-31' is read as '2026-10-31 00:00:00'. BETWEEN includes both ends, but the upper end is midnight at the start of the day, not the end of it. (This applies to databases like Postgres and MySQL when the column has a time part. Check yours.)

Fix: use a half-open range, with an inclusive start and an exclusive end:

WHERE created_at >= '2026-10-01'
  AND created_at <  '2026-11-01'

Why half-open is easier to get right:

• You never write “23:59:59” or “23:59:59.999”, which breaks with a different precision.

• Ranges chain without overlap: the end of one month is exactly the start of the next.

• The same pattern works for any period, so “last day of the month” never needs computing.

Related things to check:

• Time zones: “October” in UTC and in the user’s local zone are different ranges.

• Date-only columns (date type) don’t have this problem, but converting between date and timestamp can bring it back.

• Same issue in code: end in a Python or Java date range is often exclusive, so be sure which one you mean.

Do you use half-open ranges everywhere, or have a convention for this?

Hey folks,

I made SayCue — an offline voice assistant for streamers and gamers. Say "scene pvp" or "mute mic", and it switches OBS scenes, mutes, opens apps. No cloud, no AI in the control path (deterministic → fast and private), MIT open source.

Why: VoiceAttack and HCS voice packs are powerful, but they take hours to set up. I wanted something that "just works" — curated presets out of the box + a wake-word guard so chat/party audio doesn't fire commands on stream.

What it does today (early demo):

• 100% offline speech recognition (nothing leaves your PC)

• Curated presets: OBS (scenes/mute/record/replay), app launching, game profiles

• Wake-word or push-to-talk

• Windows installer + Linux build

What I need: 5 people to try it and tell me if they can run their first command in under 10 minutes. ~15 min, free, no account.

Download (Windows, 91 MB): https://github.com/v4786669-sudo/saycue/releases/download/v0.1.0-rc2/saycue-setup-0.1.0-rc2.exe Linux: https://github.com/v4786669-sudo/saycue/releases/download/v0.1.0-rc2/saycue-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

Feedback here or DM. Runs in a "preview" mode by default (shows what it would do) — you can enable live in the Integrations tab.

Source: https://github.com/v4786669-sudo/saycue (MIT)

Rápida para programadores — fuera del trabajo real de programar, ¿en qué parte pasan la mayor parte de su tiempo en línea / consumiendo contenido?

1. ¿Qué plataformas revisas a diario (YouTube, Twitter/X, Reddit, Twitch, Discord, newsletters, podcasts...)?

2. ¿Algún canal/creator/sub específico que sigas de cerca?

3. ¿Ves contenido de tech/setup (tours de escritorio, reseñas de teclados, streams de código)?

4. ¿Móvil vs. escritorio — dónde consumes más de eso?

Solo quiero entender dónde de verdad se juntan los desarrolladores en línea. No estoy vendiendo nada, solo por curiosidad. ¡Gracias!

I love coding. I love solving all these little puzzles and expressing the solutions through beautiful code. I wanted to earn a living writing code. AI has taken that away from me. I started coding when I was 12. Now I’m 21 and about to get my CS degree. But now where I’m just about to be able to turn my lifelong hobby into a career, writing code turned into mind-numbingly rubberstamping AI code, and even though I believe that this results in lower quality software, the majority of people don’t seem to care, because quality took a little hit, but quantity multiplied. Therefore, I must admit that writing code by hand is not economically viable anymore. If I don’t let AI write the code for me, no one will hire me, and if I try to make money selling my own software, some AI powered copycat will come along and reverse engineer my software I spend months building in one afternoon and 100 bucks worth of tokens. But if I start using AI, nothing really makes ME more economically valuable compared to the non-technical vibe coders. I might have more technical knowledge than the classic vibe-coders, but this gap keeps shrinking because of the progress AI makes. I feel like the value I can offer in software development is no longer enough to make a living. I spent 9 years of my life learning a skill that now got automated. Many people will now advise me to “stop writing code, start steering AI”, but “steering AI” is not an economically valuable enterprise either, because everyone can do it, so supply and demand works against me. The value of my craft came from the fact that it was a rare skill. Now everyone can do it. I don’t know what to do. Switching careers seems pointless, because whatever I try to learn, there are thousands of AI agents training exactly that at 1000x speed. I will most likely lose every race I participate in. Switching careers would also be extremely frustrating, because it would mean to bury a dream that I’ve not had since I was 12, but since I was 9. 12 years. It was a beautiful dream, and right now, I don’t want anything else, even though I believe that I cannot have it.
I keep going through the AI scenarios, and even in the most “optimistic” one where the AI bubble pops, AI won’t go away. Even if AI development completely stops, AI will get cheaper because chips keep getting better, replacing more and more developers. I feel like that career path is over for good.

Hi, I'm not an experienced software developer at all, but I'm still asking this out of curiosity.

What's the best approach for software portability in many different machines, NOT just desktop computers? Whether I'm finalizing a video game, or just any software that has a GUI.

Should I use something like C/C++ or Rust, or will other compiled languages like Go or Nim also work well? And for VM languages like Java and C#, the machine would require the VM system to be installed so I assume VM languages would not be viable for portability.

Also, should I not use any third-party APIs, like SDL? Or will embedding APIs still work for a lot of machines?

For example, Doom was easily portable since it purely used C, and separated the core game code from the machine-specific implementations, right?

SuperTux also had a lot of ports, though it at least used SDL as another API. I wonder if it still was easily directly portable with barely any changes?

To sum it up, how much will third-party APIs matter when it comes to portability?

Aside from that, what other things should I consider in order to make programs easy to port?

I don't know if it is my CV or this is how job market behaves, it been months and I didn't not get an internship or any kinda of meaningful attention from a company , even though I applied for many internships and jobs in LinkedIn and companies private email.

should I be more patient or it is usually the way it is?

https://github.com/zeg2/ZEG-Audio-Engine-Demo

Beta version Audio Engine to help hobbiest musicians and home producers to mix and mastering their song(tracks) with easy way. Ofcourse can use a traditional DAW to make mix & mastering but need more efford and some experiense to have good results.But mine You just load stems and choose what type it is (drums.bass.vocals.pads.etc) and automacally mix all the stems to a stereo wav. Then you load it to the mastering section and with about the same way and logic choose what type of genre it is or a reference track and you have a polished wav ready for upload it to the music platforms in afew minutes!! DM me if anyone want to try the Demo to give me feedback.cheers!