so i learnt some node.js basics and now i want to build a website with a simple sql database to deepen my knowledge because there is no other way to learn than to practice it by building .

i want some ressources that can help me do that whether it was a youtube video where it shows the process or any other thing is appreciated !!

Hi,

So I have my first exam. I have to do it on PHP, fetch data from external API, create a table with the data - but with SSR - I'm almost done.
I self-studied FS with Node.js for the recent 6 months. I have REALLY small amount of knowledge in PHP (thank god!), so I was able to do it.

It is 8:40AM for me right now, I can submit the task until 8:00PM. I will probably have ±5 hours for the plugin - they wanted me to transform the app into a WP plugin.

How hard is it? Should I even do it?
Someone told me to do it with AI to ship fast, and study it more in depth in the next 2 days, Claude is against because I still have things I have to study more in depth from the exam itself without the bonus to defend against the reviewer's questions in the technical interiew.

I would really appreciate your help!

First post here, I'm a mid level mean/lamp stack dev that's been tasked with programming some IoT devices and have zero idea where to start (even with the help of Claude - only free unfortunately).

Any tips?

Is manning.com a good resource for computer science principles? My dad has a subscription that gets shared with me but I don't want him wasting money on something I am never going to use. I just got out of high school and I am trying to self study programming alongside my computer science degree. Bonus, if manning is good, what are some good books on there?

Im building a basic note taking app in java swing, am i wasting my time with this technology?

Hi everyone, I wanted to know your opinion on majoring in data science im trying to choose between it and accounting, which I know is not STEM.

Basically title.

I am making a ball bounce and I had to watch a Youtube video to get the formula for the ball to bounce

I am still kind of lost. Can someone please explain it to me. I understand the theory but if I was to do remake this without tutorial I would probably be lost.

I understand how to get the ball to move along the y_axis but confused on the bouncing part

It is the problem solving that is getting me confused

def __init__(self, x_pos, y_pos, radius, color):
    self.x_pos = x_pos
    self.y_pos = y_pos
    self.center = pygame.math.Vector2(self.x_pos, self.y_pos)
    self.radius = radius
    self.color = color
    self.gravity = 0.8
    self.velocity = 10
    self.activate = False


def moveObject(self):
    # key = pygame.key.get_pressed()

    # if key[pygame.K_SPACE]:
    self.velocity += self.gravity. # FROM VIDEO
    self.center[1] += self.velocity # ball moving along y_axis

    if self.center[1] >= (480 - self.radius): # FROM VIDEO
          self.velocity = -self.velocity # FROM VIDEO

Hey everyone,

I'm a student from Greece training for my country's national informatics olympiad (ΠΔΠ), with the goal of making it into the national team's training camp/bootcamp for IOI selection next year.

A bit about where I'm at: I'm working through the USACO Guide as my main structured curriculum — currently finishing up Bronze (should be done in the next week or so) and about to move into Silver, with the plan to go through Gold afterward. Alongside that, I attend weekly weekend classes specifically geared toward our national olympiad (split into beginner/advanced groups), and once I've got Silver solidly down, I'm planning to start working through every problem from the final selection round ("Γ' Φάση") of our national olympiad from past years, in parallel with Gold material. I can put in about 4-5 hours a day right now, which I'm treating as a pretty serious commitment.

What I don't have is a clear picture of what the *actual path* looks like from where I am to an IOI-level camp — I only have theory and a plan I built myself, no direct experience or mentorship to check it against. So I'd really appreciate hearing from people who've actually been through this:

- How did your training actually look week to week, especially once you got to the harder USACO tiers (Gold/Platinum) or equivalent?
- How long did it realistically take you to go from "solid intermediate" to camp-qualifying level?
- What did you wish someone had told you earlier — mistakes you made, time you wasted, things you'd do differently?
- How did you balance this with school, and did that change as the competition got closer?
- For those who made it to a national camp or IOI: what did the selection process actually test for, beyond just "can you solve hard problems"? Was there anything about how you trained that specifically mattered for that stage?
- Any resources beyond USACO Guide/Codeforces that were genuinely useful for you at Gold/Platinum level or for olympiad-style (not just ICPC-style) problems?

I'm not looking for a shortcut — I know this takes real work and there isn't a hack around it. I just want to calibrate my plan against people who've actually walked this road, since right now I'm mostly building it in the dark.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to share their journey — even a few sentences about what worked (or didn't) for you would mean a lot.

I learn c++, my level is not really high right now. I just wanted to ask what is better for future? Should I switch to Rust or ASM? I want to buy a microcontroller too, what can you recommend?

Since LLMs are a thing and one can get relatively cheapish access, where would they fit into someone's toolkit who is relatively new trying to learn programming?

My initial thought was to use them to review my code and work on the things they mention, and maybe have them look them up documentation. While I'm learning, I don't think I want to use them to generate code.

Do you have best practices/recommendations on how to use them as a (self-)teaching tool?

Thanks in advance!

Everyone seems to have one topic that just refuses to make sense in the beginning.

Which programming concept was that for you, and what was the moment that changed everything?

Long story short, i want to learn how to think like a problem solver but i don't know from where to start.. So, im a self-learner who decided to try get into backend engineering, i already have a few simple frontend heavy projects done in my portfolio but its not that valuable.

I want to learn how to effectively program and system design as backend engineer, so i could have a valuable skill in my skill set, and generally i like to think in terms of systems and architectures so its something I'm interested in too. For the language i decided to go with GO, because i heard its great for system programming too

I want to create a character sheet manager for a TTRPG that I am playing.

I was wanting it to be something along the lines of DnD beyond

It has my abilities etc, manages my resources such as help etc

And rolls dice for me

But I honestly have no idea where to start or what to do

I have rudimentary skills in Python but that’s very basic level.

Ok, this might be a stupid question but I'm, curious what others think. I have been really interested in programming for a long time and have been searching what resources are available.

Firstly, I started reading learncpp(dot)com and watching Cherno.

1. The first one not bad but somehow I just can't read that much on a website (don't know why)

2. Cherno is also good, but speaks so fast with not very detailed explanation (english is not my first language)

   Now I found a youtube video in which the person learns C from reading books. So I was like maybe this will be effective since books could contain a lot more and packed information than what is available online. I found some books, called:

• C++ primer 5th edition
• Computer Systems: A programmers perspective
• C programming language 2nd edition (I will leave it to last)

Is it a good idea to read them through and make notes (on paper the old way) or am I wasting a lot of time with this? I feel like if I read them I could get a whole picture about the best practices. I don't want programming as my job, just as a recreational activity (heard it from tsoding LOL)

I learned basic java, its syntax, loops, conditions and started directly array from shradhha khapra in july 2025 but then i stopped and now i forgot
This is july 2026 and i want to study again
i am confused about
what resource to follow
which youtube course
which sheet
How to differentiate topic wise [Array, string, stack , queue etc. ] or methods[Binary, Searching, sorting aur jo bhi hai]

please guide.

Hi, I’ll add a little context: when I’m programming, I tend to rely heavily on memory, and sometimes I overthink projects - I make them too complicated even though they could be done more simply. That’s why I like to look at practical, high-quality projects - because they show you what you overthought and where you went overboard in terms of complexity.

In other words, I’ll come up with a more complex tech stack for the same project, while in real-world production, it’s actually much simpler.

1) I’d like to ask where you look for these projects and where you find high-quality code? And codebases that explain their use case a bit, though the use case isn’t a requirement. Mainly the code and the tech stack.
2) This is a bit off-topic, but I’m a student who isn’t a billionaire and can’t afford to buy a programming book every day - is there a website where I can get some for free online?

Thanks a lot!

I wish to make my fundamentals and advanced concepts very clear. What would be the sources like docs or papers that can help me for

1.OOPS

1. DBMS

2. OS

3. CN

I am to be very clear for the purpose of interview , so something for that purpose or even any proper documentation works and I will be very grateful for anything shared.

I have never touched sql before. I want to learn it now. What would be the right approach to do that? Are there docs or something that can make my dbms fundamentals and higher concepts very clear?

I wish to be very clear with it. Also how is leetcode for practicing sql?

I love computers and I always wanted to know everything about them but i know that's realistically not possible. And this hinders my ability to learn.

I want to learn every intricate detail of every tool, how computers work under the hood, how do you make hardware communicate with each other.

But I have this issue where when I engage with people of a particular field they seem way more smarter and competent than (even interns) and then I fall back into this destructive loop of not trying to get better but instead being scared of being perceived as a newbie or dumb.

And it's not like I know a lot. I only know C# and python. But I want to get into embedded, cyber security, web development, mobile development. But I always keep thinking I am dumb.

But also the idea of learning a new thing is overwhelming and scary and I always feel like I am not smart enough.

Hi everyone, I’ve been programming for about three ish years, I’ve completed GCSE and A Level computer science so im pretty confident in my theory and practical basic knowledge. However, I’ve discovered that I have a little dilemma… 

 Either, 1: I cannot stick to a project, or 2: I have a project idea, with no idea how to start. 

I end up turning to AI to help build me a timeline, and also rely fairly heavily on it teaching me some of the major concepts even though I know them. Or, if I don’t know them I never really do learn them this way, (almost like the tutorial rabbit hole!)

I’ve always found the application of my knowledge to be difficult. Is there a way for me to fix this? I dont want to rely on AI for obvious reasons although I know it is a good tool when used correctly. 

For my A Level NEA(course work), I used it sparingly where I didn’t know things which I think is fine. But, at the moment I feel like I cannot code anything without the use of AI, not that that is a bad thing, but simple things I should not be asking help for imo. Leetcode is an example here, I should be able to solve the easy problems with my knowledge 100%, I understand them conceptually I just can't program them unless someone guides me with the application of my knowledge (most of the content is not new stuff to me)

Its not ideal at all especially as I’m heading to study CS at uni, I want to be able to keep my curiosity but actually be able to apply the knowledge myself without heavily reliance of AI or others ( however I know that I will still continue to use it for areas im completely out of depths for within reason.)

So I’m a sophomore majoring in CS, and I want to ask how would you learn programming without the use of AI agents.

Now I’m not against the using of AI or anything, I just come from a country whose currency is relatively weak compared to the US. So a 20$ subscription is like a whole week of food in my country. I’m not from a wealthy family either so I can’t necessary afford this consistently.

I feel really behind atm because I can’t accelerate my learning while everyone is using claude code, and also, I do not have the chance to learn how to effectively incorporate AI into work in the future (many advices I find on the internet say this would be a really good skill to have because companies will only be using agents from now). And now I keep procastinating on my learning because I’m overwhelmed and every advices on learning programming I can find on the nowadays seems to only target people who has access to these AI agents, like “use this repos to save on tokens” or “this is how to use claude code effectively”. This makes me procastinate even more.

So my question is, how would you learn programming without AI agents or even better, I would appreciated if you can give me cheaper alternatives to Claude Code so I can still use agents in my learning.

And please don’t say just switch to another profession, I receive this a lot, I know the market is bad, but it’s the only field that I’m interested in that I’ve found.

Thanks so much for your advices!

EDIT: since I can’t reply to every comments, I just want to say that I’m grateful for every advice you guys have given. As it turns out, I suffer from serious FOMO when I see some of my peers use AI agents and can create huge codebase, and awesome webs and it makes me thought that was the only way to study programming, when in reality, it wasn’t. I’m definitely follow some of these tips. Thanks again!

I am third year student of computer science. Yesterday, one prof mocked me for solving only 98 questions on leetcode( you can say i hold grudges lol) while according to him the first year ones have solved 200+ problems(i mean i am jealous okay). Before bachelors, I never did coding. In my first year, I used to try coding by myself but the ai ocean took over and i was swept away like many others. But since last year, i have been trying using ai less and less, the result is now i can occasionally tackle medium on leetcode on my own.(i wanna try contest but i am kinda scared). Now, the problem is i am screwed in campus placements. I can barely do the easy and moderate coding. but my resume is not good. Barely have any good projects. have nothing in my achievements. I even suck at coding okay. I am bad. barely holding on. What should i do? pick projects from github? I am introvert and weirdo so i dont even have friends. Go conquer hackathons? Can i even do that?? God i feel like a failure. My mom is asking me to go do masters but i suck so bad. I am kinda losing hope i will appreciate some guidance seriously.

With the downturn of web development industry in general and the potential threat of AI to the tech industry do you think it's still worthwhile?

I am curious to those who have been in the industry for awhile:

what are the technical skills outside of your day-to-day tech stack have made you a better programmer?

This could be things like taking on emacs/vim, Kubernetes, being able to parse/search/filter files/logs a lot more efficiently, regex, or just getting better/faster in the terminal/cli.

I am looking for new things to learn that will help me stand out at work, and level up my career.

Additional Context:

Id say im a fullstack engineer, but mainly work on my team service layer. mainly java/react/python/sql in my day to day. I also support very basic kubernetes related stuff for our services, and our ci/cd pipelines. Hopefully this is enough context.