So I made this account months ago to vent about my nightmare job. Just to summarize:

Working at a company making a chatbot. Chatbot was written in AI. Its fine at first, a little buggy, but salvageable. I am put in charge of the rewrite. Then suddenly, I am taken off the project and a new hire is put in my place. A mad scientist with AI psychosis. I warn management that AI can make a demo, a rough draft, an MVP...but it cant make production quality client facing apps. At least not with agentic loops (which is what mad scientist used).

Of course management didn't listen. The mouthbreather above me in the org chart even told me "It's 2026. Humans don't write code". Fast forward 8 months with mad scientist in charge. The version 1.0 of the chatbot is exploding now, no longer salvageable at all. So management had the mad scientist write version 2.0 using his amazing agentic loops that had helped us so much so far. He misses deadlines, cant get anything working, the first clients on it hate it and drop our service. Mad scientist quits in frustration because he failed utterly.

Now management has a "come to Jesus" moment. I am told that I was 100% correct the whole time. They are talking about making me Director of Engineering for my foresight (finally I will get out of the trenches).

So its all good news and a happy ending right? Not really.

Management's first order to me was to fix the 2.0 version. Imagine this:

9 containers for a stupid chatbot (2 linux VMs and 7 dockers). Obviously a nightmare already. 9 places things can go wrong. Nine places to check error logs. The containers constantly get out of sync so what did mad scientist do? Did he simplify? Of course not! That's not the AI way! Instead he built an MCP to talk between the containers, and to "fix" them when they broke. Think about that...an architecture so unstable that we have to pay Anthropic for tokens to keep our system working. Mindblowing. But it gets better. Automated build and deploy processes that cant be bypassed without borking the system. 400 documentation files written by AI (hard to read, missing key info, and for some reason random sentences here and there are in Chinese. I'm not joking). 2900 unit tests...which is actually the best part of the application although I have no idea what they do or if they even do anything at all. They certainly dont seem to be reporting bugs to us that our clients are experiencing. You should see the interface on the admin panel. Every client and every internal agent we have had work on this thing HATE it. Technical terms everywhere like "bot configurator". Are you kidding me? How about "bot setup"? Nope. Configurator. And the absolute worst part of the app? Its not designed to be maintained by humans. Human edits actually have a risk of breaking the automated system that actually maintains itself. Yes...it logs errors, creates bug tickets, then writes code, deploys it, and closes the tickets. He literally tried to build a software application that maintained itself! We might as well have tried to build a perpetual motion machine.

So now I will probably get to be Director of Engineering at last after 20 years in my field! But I will rule over a ruined wasteland. I will be responsible for maintaining this (Im still trying to convince management of a rewrite...they refused at first, but are coming around finally).

As an industry, our management was so afraid of code, so afraid of the difficulty, that we set up this elaborate Rube Goldberg machine so we could avoid code. But the Rube Goldberg machine is a thousand times more complex than just writing boring regular software. Seriously, if writing software is so terribly hard, then how could 9 VMs and an MCP be the solution?

There's a light at the end of the tunnel for me...but this tunnel is longer and darker than it ever needed to be :/

I am learning c++ and want to make a more sophisticated calculator. Not just 1+1.

C++ offers a lot of freedom. I am asking myself: should I create everything myself? For example pow()? Or should I use existing libraries?

Thank you very much!

Since it's a pretty famous mouse used by many programmers, what have you mapped the thumb wheel to?

I have seen a lot of post saying "once I learned C - all other languages just became about syntax"

Has that been true for you? Or did a different language give you the eureka moment - e.g. something like Assembly?

Or is it just a false premise at all to think "once I learn programming language X - then all other languages become **easy**"

Hi everyone, I’m joining from Türkiye; I’m 13 years old, and this might be my last post here. For the past three years—ever since I was 10—I’ve been teaching myself about electronics, C++, Arduino, Blender, game development, and PCB design; essentially, I’ve been self-taught. I’ve spent countless hours learning, making mistakes, solving problems, and trying to turn my ideas into real projects. I’m at an intermediate level in C++ and have started exploring the fundamentals of advanced topics. I’ve also shared quite a few C++ tutorial videos on YouTube and Instagram. Beyond programming, I’m proficient in Blender, Unity, and PlayCanvas, and I know a bit of JavaScript, too. I even created and published my own game on itch.io! The game is set during World War II. You don’t play as a soldier; instead, you play as a cannon that has lost its family and set out to find them. Along the way, you overcome obstacles and dream of reuniting with them. However, in the end, you discover that the cannon suffers from schizophrenia and that the family it was searching for—and indeed the entire journey—was merely a delusion. In reality, it never reunites with its family. This was one of my attempts to turn an idea in my head into reality; I’m proud to have managed to complete and publish it. Now, let me talk about the project I mentioned in my previous posts (feel free to go back and check that post out): I’m working on designing my own development board. The schematic has become complex, and some of the PCB routing has turned into a bit of a headache; That’s why I had to go back and rework things to fix issues and tidy up the connections. It could be frustrating at times, but it’s all part of the process of learning hardware design. For those interested in the technical details: The board is based on the ATmega328P microcontroller; it uses a CH340G USB-to-serial interface for computer communication and features an AMS1117-5.0 voltage regulator. I also added dedicated TX and RX indicator LEDs to the board. I had planned to share more updates, and there are still aspects I want to improve. I’m also considering adding an LCD screen to the project in the future. This isn't my final project; it’s just one step in a much longer journey. I shared this development board project here previously; if you’d like to see the earlier stages, feel free to check out my past posts. Unfortunately, new social media regulations in Türkiye regarding users under the age of 15 might cause me to lose access to this account. I don’t know exactly what will happen, but I wanted to write this post just in case I’m unable to return and share my progress here. It feels strange to think I might have to leave a community where I love sharing what I create and what I learn. But there’s one thing I want to make clear: Even if my account gets shut down, I will NEVER stop creating. I’ll keep learning C++. I’ll continue experimenting with electronics and Arduino. I’ll keep designing PCBs, developing games, working in Blender, and creating new software. Just as I have for the past three years, I will continue to make mistakes and learn from them. The only difference might be that I won't be able to share my projects, progress, or new ideas with you anymore. I may not be posting here, but I will still remain that same kid sitting at the computer, trying to understand how things work and looking for ways to build something new. I want to thank everyone who shared their knowledge, offered advice, or took the time to look at projects created by someone like me. You might not realize it, but even small interactions can encourage a young person to keep learning and creating. I am only 13 years old. I have a lot to learn, and I realize my projects aren't perfect. But three years ago, I was just a kid curious about electronics and programming. Today, I design my own circuit boards, write C++ code, and publish my own games. And I want to see how far I can go. Perhaps this isn't a real goodbye. Perhaps it's just the end of a chapter. I might lose this account, but I won't lose my curiosity, my ideas, or my desire to create. Thank you for being part of this little journey. Take care, keep creating amazing things, and never stop being curious. Goodbye!(Translated using Google Translate; please excuse any linguistic errors.)

Hey everyone! 👋

I'm trying to understand how developers actually work with AI coding tools, beyond what we see in demos.

I'd love to learn what works well, where AI falls short, and what challenges you face while building things with AI.

I've put together a short, anonymous survey that takes around 5 minutes. No name or email is required.

🔗 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSef43VfXV1cKTvYKBkvDeay8eslB8YnAvH5TmTXALnM80KuIg/viewform

There are no right or wrong answers — I'm interested in your honest experiences, including the frustrating parts!

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to participate. 🙏

I'm a newly student programming student and I don't have a big budget. I need a little help on which to get, which specs do I need to choose? and stuff please help (Not a Mac)

I'm new to IT, and in my view, I treat programming as developing something. But some people in my workspace talk about enabling, which seems different from developing, and they often say it with a negative tone, e.g., less technical, poor job mobility.

My question is, what's the difference between enabling and developing?

Additionally, my work includes optimization, which is said to be part of enabling. I consider optimization to be important and challenging. If enabling is perceived as less than developing, does that mean optimization is not as valuable as I believe?

Hi everyone! I’m a Data Science student working on my capstone project on gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF). I’m looking for a dataset of public Twitter/X posts related to GBVF to analyze discussions, identify patterns, and build predictive models. If anyone has an existing dataset or knows where I can access one, I’d really appreciate your help. Thank you!

To be fair I have never learned to use assembler but I always looked up to people how are able to build ultra efficient software. With the upcoming age of GenAI, wouldn’t it be better in many ways to just let GenAI produce everything as near as possible to the hardware? There might be even a more hardware-near solution than assembler, I am not sure.

What do you think? What could go wrong? I am really curious to get human response instead of asking an AI about this.

Plz help me out.....

What programming language have you always dreamed of using?

I'm collecting opinions from programmers and people interested in language design. I want honest technical opinions, not answers based on what already exists.

If you were choosing the design of a language you would actually want to use, what would you want?

1. Syntax

- What should the syntax feel like?

- C/C++ style, Python-like, English-like, or something completely different?

1. Architecture

- Compiler, interpreter, VM, or hybrid?

- What should the pipeline look like?

1. Commands / built-ins

- What should be included in the core language?

- What functionality should exist from day one?

1. Functions

- How should functions be declared and called?

- Strongly typed, flexible, modular?

- What built-in functions would you consider essential?

1. Types & data

- Static typing, dynamic typing, or both?

- How should variables and data be represented?

1. Errors

- How detailed should compiler/interpreter errors be?

- Should errors show the exact line, cause, expected syntax, and possible fix?

1. Modules & projects

- How should large programs be structured?

- Modules, packages, namespaces, classes, or something different?

1. Simplicity vs power

- Should the language prioritize ease of learning, maximum control, or a balance?

1. Killer feature

- What ONE feature would make you seriously consider using it over languages like C++, Python, or Java?

1. Brutal question

- What is one thing you genuinely dislike about existing programming languages and would redesign?

Feel free to answer only the questions you care about. Technical answers are very welcome.

I'm especially interested in the language design and architecture, not just what the language would be used for.

Hey, I love programming and I've done so for the last 15 years. I am tired of all the AI bros and AI coders. Is there anybody out there that feels like me and still codes manually?

I know AI is here and it won't go, but I simply refuse to use it and the moment I will be forced to use AI, I will quit professional programming and stick to my own stuff. I didn't learn programming for the money but because I'm a curious person and I enjoy the process and learning.

I've built my own ontology-oriented graph database recently from scratch and disabled all sorts of AI utilities (even auto complete) and it felt so refreshing again.

My next step will be to move away from any IDE that has any kind of AI support and just do VIM

I originally posted this in my once favorite sub, r/golang, but unfortunately it got deleted there, since it sparked a lot of discussions, I thought it might fit here.

Dev confession: I built the thing first and asked questions later.

I started by building websites for small local businesses and cold calling them to sell. I was proud of the builds. Owners were... polite. After hundreds of calls I finally heard what they were saying: the site wasn't the problem. Nobody could find them on Google, so the phone wasn't ringing.

So I rewrote the product, many times. Each version went in front of real owners, and anything they didn't care about got deleted, including features I loved building. The biggest engineering lesson: the best code I wrote was the code I removed. Owners want fewer decisions, so the product kept getting smaller.

Where it landed is SitePeek: it checks how a local business shows up online, tracks calls and Google profile views, and works to get the business onto Google's first page so more calls come in. It launches on Kickstarter tomorrow, Oct 14.

For other devs who've built for non-technical users: how do you stop yourself from overbuilding before you've talked to anyone?

Anyone know how Social Media Content Moderation works?

He had been vibe coding last month in the frontend side and he did some awesome UI's now everytime i question him about a block of code he get mad and act indignant about it like he was the brain who did it and i can confirm 100% he is not even reading the generated code, he is not an operator who give clear indications to the IA, i can see clearly how his prompts are "Do this, do that functionality" since you can see the insane amount of uneeded code generated

He is not a tech guy i have been working with him more than a year now and he doesnt care about performance, quality, good practices, ui, reformat/optimize code or neither find the way to solve something with the minimum amount of code, for him adding 10 IFs statements its better than find a solution to reduce those ifs

I have been working during a week in a chat text he asked me about how to add a filter "seen, unseen" messages and i told him that wasnt ready but if he want he can do the frontend and later i will connect it
Today i found he completely overwrote my last week work and completely remove it and doing it by "himself" from zero and of course with the filter "seen/unseen" done

Does he think he has beaten the development industry and now he is a software engineer with 100 years of experience ?, im the only one dev guy in that company

Hello everyone,

I am learning programming and I am would really appreciate seeing some human written code.

I like to learn by breaking things apart, and so far I have been doing that with code written by ai. I get so confused when going through people’s GitHubs because there are so many files and pages that I don’t understand how to search through just yet.

IF IT IS SAFE TO DO, would you mind sharing a couple of your pages (written in JavaScript and Python specifically) so that I can read through the different ways people code? I don’t need the full stack project all put together, just please share what the overall project is and a link to the specific page with just the code written on it.

Also, I’ve seen some of the recent posts on here, I’m not interested in any career advice so please don’t tell me I should give up and what I’m doing is useless lol

Thank you everyone!

I'm looking for some fresh ideas on how to handle code review in this still "new" era we live in today where there's tons of code being produced because of AI.

1. How do you do code review (if at all) in your team?

2. How do you ensure quality when QA itself is leaning more into AI generated test suites?

3. Do you feel like stacked PRs help at all?

I'm sure there's some cool practices out there that just haven't emerged yet. I'm personally trying to generate Chrome extensions for myself (or for the team) to improve our workflow such as UI/UX improvements for Gitlab, highlighters for our software, gif generation for new pull requests etc.

Sorry for the formatting, I'm on mobile.

hi this is a rewrite of a past post ( i still need help ).

So im in a team of 3 we want to build a Web App with kinda the same idea of [timerepublic.com](http://timerepublic.com)

that will have a Platform that connect people with skills to teach each other but we found a problem that wen the tow ( for example the student and the one how will teach him the skill ) in a build in face call ( session ) maybe one or both will do a illegal or Inappropriate thing.

So if some one could help us to how to build a system or already existing one for monitoring this session

( and the probelm that the users will speak darija moroccan and anamigh moroccan that AI is not traind that much for it )

edits :

but in the same time we don't want to let data of this session in our data base cus its kinda illegal

The stack : Java, React, Typescript, tailwind CSS

all the communication will be with REST API

the Archt : monolithe modulaire ( cus we want to make it fast as a team of 3 and also maybe in the future add other platform like mobile and desktop )

I got my first developer job in 1999 fixing two-digit years. Frameworks later took the repetitive work. Now AI agents handle most of the coding while I manage them from my phone, reviewing plans on a train and approving changes from the couch.

The arc is striking: write everything yourself → lean on frameworks → write instructions (mostly Markdown) for a swarm of agents and stay accountable for the result.

The last two years compressed what used to feel like a multi-year shift into something immediate. Each new coding model makes the last one look dated.

Full story: https://medium.com/@spaquet/from-y2k-to-agents-md-278e74773415

Coding is an art, people who do it are artist.
But there is a concept about art that people tend to forget: there are competent creative geniuses that create new methods, and then there are talented artists that are good at replicating methods that others created.
Since I started learning about programming 6 years ago, the sentence people would always tell me was “google is your best friend”. How come? Why the core belief behind the programming community is that researching what other people have done is the way to be great? That would simply make you great at copying a piece of code, you’re not gonna create something new like this.
Everytime you watched a tutorial for doing something, everytime you googled an answer, you didn’t differ much from AI, as it does the same exact thing, just faster.

I am a mediocre programmer. The things I build don’t differ from the average software technology out there. For people like me AI is incredibly useful because it does what I would have done (which is searching on the net what others have done) and then used it in my project.
For people who engineer new types of software / algorithms / methods and whatever, perhaps AI in coding would sound worthless to them.
But unless you are those rare people, why discard the argument immediately?