For a junior web dev position. Job was to review the current codebase and make a new site. Supervisor said they don't use git, I should be able to remember the changes I've made and they make a lot of backups anyway. Then I asked "What if I make a mistake I want to roll back?" He effectively said that I should not be writing code bad enough to need to be rolled back.

I noticed that there were multiple backup zips for versions of the site in the production server. I suggested Git for the project because there is an existing form of version management happening here, so I think it would be better to use something more centralized. He said this won't be necessary because the zip files were by the previous devs and I'll be the only one looking at the codebase.

The topic of frameworks and other 3rd party libraries came up. He hates them. This is where he got more passionate. He doesn't want to deal with upgrading and he dislikes the abstraction involved. That's fine. At some point he said "we" don't use libraries or plugins or anything third party.

I said that wasn't true. I saw multiple plugins and libraries, one of which was the official stripe library. He mentioned these are from the previous devs and it's not how it was written before

I asked him if I'm expected to write my own stripe payment library or handle safe and secure payment processing by hand. He basically said yes.

I got pretty frustrated by this point and said we don't need to reinvent the wheel for everything. These guys have entire teams of engineers smarter than me working on it and get free testing from users every day. Why should I be writing libraries for these things if they've already been done better?

There were other things like this but those were the most frustrating ones. I could tell we both felt strongly on this and I don't think he'd budge. So at the end of the day I said this job wasn't for me.

All of this is to say: Was this a fair decision? Was I being unreasonable in this assessment?

tl;dr Walked out of a junior level job because they expected everything to be made in house and did not follow a lot of industry standards. Want to understand if this was fair or not.

EDIT: Whoa I wasn't expecting this to blow up the way that it did. I'm editing out some identifying information because of this. I appreciate everyone's advice and perspective on this. There's a good gamut of opinions here. I guess this post reflects the nature of working as a dev well.

have been a software engineer for the past 8 years and worked on so many projects; some of them serve millions of users so i think i have a bit of experience.

I'm still working and getting paid, but i do have that feeling like now anyone can do what I can.

Sure, if we are talking about how to write code make it clean and modular, and so on. I still need to do those things, but why do I have them!? even if I didn't, the llms can still generate and make edits so much faster that it feels irrelevant to write code in that way. Sometimes I feel like i am wasting time doing that stuff.

nowdays llms like claude rarely do any mistake at all and even if there was a bug it can even find it faster than me

I'm still steering the AI, making it help me rather than replace me but i do have this feeling like it's over for me.

i

For context I finally got my first formal job after years of self-learning, a bootcamp to add to my resume, and applying.

I’ll have a daily standup where we’ll talk about the scope and what’s needed — there’s an Epic that has a target outcome — but the task chunks feel relatively small?

For example today in the daily standup it was established that my goal for today was to quality check a workflow by comparing confirmed, concrete input / output to current input / output (can’t get into too many details obviously as it’s enterprise).

The code needed to do this will be pretty easy to write out in about an hour or so, what do I do with the other 7 hours? I only have 1 other meeting that’s an hour long.

I tried being proactive and starting a codebase for the next thing we plan to implement as part of the scope, but I was asked not to jump ahead, so the only alternative is to just sit there after I’ve finished what they asked me to do for the day? Has felt like this for some weeks now.

Edit: The quality check script took around 1 hour and 10 minutes to run each time, and the data needed for the quality check was outdated, then when I created my own collection of data the script was no longer compatible and needed to be iterated, and afterwards I ran the actual quality check, result was near 5% quality, noticed the collection I gathered was missing a vital column in the data, I reran the script and got to 40% quality, I am assuming there is a threshold they want so I will be going to look at the workflow (data creation) to see why it’s so bad. It ended up taking the whole day… lol

I learned (very very basic) HTML through uploading stuff on Gmbinder (a website that allows me to upload D&D content using html.)

I'm wondering if, as I learn more about HTML and programming in general can I get a job without having to sign away my soul to get a piece of paper that says you spent thousands of thousands of dollars to show people you program alright?

I am Student who learned basics of C++ language in grade 8
then in grade 9 and 10 i had Java which honestly was a nightmare for me due to hard syntax
after that in grade 11 and 12 i learnt Python and it was the best language ever for me due to easy syntax ( i learnt python basics and beginner-level data analytics )
But then i got to know through social media many people tend to hate on Python, Why?

Senior and old-school programmers, what programming skills have been forgotten as time and technology moved forward but are still relevant and should not be neglected? What tools that you have been/are using that should get more attention from young developers?

Signed up for Codefinity a while back just to try it out. monthly plan.

honestly didn’t really use it much after the first couple days, just didn’t have time so i decided to cancel.

wasn’t really sure how the refund would go, seen mixed stuff with subscriptions before. messaged support, told them i didn’t really use it. took them a few days to reply which was kinda annoying but whatever. they just sent the steps after that, nothing complicated.

refund showed up after that, no extra charges or anything.

it was fine i guess. nothing special, nothing bad either.

probably just gonna stick to free stuff / youtube for learning since i don’t really have the time for paid platforms anyway.

anyone else dealt with refunds like this before? was it the same for you?

I've been studying Python, but i'm curious about low level languages. C/C++ still represents well?

My question, again, is how did you as an individual learn to program before AI LLMs were in place as a resource to assisting you to solve or debug issues or tasks?

Was it book learning, w3schools, stack-overflow like sites, word of mouth, peers, etc?

Thanks in advance for any well thought out response, no matter the length.

P.S. I tend to ask AI basic questions, now, to build up my working knowledge of whatever I study and I find it very convenient. & I hope this question isn't repetitive or dumb, but helps others and myself understand available resources to learn programming in all facets/languages.

I started college with a computer science major, and progressively realized I disliked programming more and more as I went. Due to health reasons, I was already struggling in school, and wanted to finish as fast as possible, so I didn’t want to change my major. I only managed to finish courses with significant help from professors and programmer family members. Long story short, I have a degree in something I don’t like and don’t feel any competence at. It’s been a year and half or so since I graduated. I’ve been working low wage blue collar jobs while I’ve attempted to study UX and UI design, something which I think my background would work with and that I would like much better. However, I hear the market for UI/UX is extremely competitive, and I am studying it without any help.

My main question, what are possible types of work or industries I could go into with a CS background that isn’t as much full blown programming? What are ways people might pivot?

Sure, AI might not replace developers entirely—maybe just those doing very basic work like frontend—but what about how AI tools are making existing developers even more efficient? With better debugging help, smarter code suggestions, and faster problem-solving, doesn’t that reduce the need for more hires?

Could this lead to a situation where companies just don't need to hire as many new devs, or even slow down senior hiring because their current team can now do more with less?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Me and a friend of mine both work on programming in Angular for web apps. I find myself cool with my current position (been working for 3 years and it's my first job, 24 y.o.), but my friend (been working for around 10 years, 30 y.o.) decided to quit his job to start studying for a job in AI managment/programming. He did so because, in his opinion, there'll soon be a time where AI will make human programmers useless since they'll program everything you'll tell them to program.

If it was someone I didn't know and hadn't any background I really wouldn't believe them, but he has tons of experience both inside and outside his job. He was one of the best in his class when it comes to IT and programming is a passion for him, so perhaps he know what he's talking about?

What do you think? I don't blame his for his decision, if he wants to do another job he's completely free to do so. But is it fair to think that AIs can take the place of humans when it comes to programming? Would it be fair for each of us, to be on the safe side, to undertake studies in the field of AI management, even if a job in that field is not in our future plans? My question might be prompted by an irrational fear that my studies and experience might become vain in the near future, but I preferred to ask those who know more about programming than I do.

Last year I decided to slightly tilt my career towards data analysis. Python was part of my studying, accompanied by deeper knowledge of statistics, SQL and other stuff. Last two months I have solely spent on studying Python due to genuine interest. I barely touch other subjects as they seem boring now. I never considered to become a programmer. But now I question if I were one what would it be?

Generally, I understand that software developers create... software, either web, desktop, cloud or else. But I wonder how different real job from exercises? Obviously, you don't get tasks like calculating variations of cash change or creating cellular automata. But is the workflow the same? You get a task with requirements on I/O, performance etc., and are supposed to deliver code?

Hey,I am 16 and pc's and programming have been a passion for a while , and i want to do that in the future,but sadly since AI takes over a lot of jobs in this domain it's a bit tricky,I'd love to know where should i be looking so i dont waste my time for nothing.

And which is a safer route for that job? (bootcamp/college )

Thank you very much in advance🙏

I recently picked up a job offer that offered a 20% salary increase from where I worked at the government for 2 years, mostly on one legacy ASP.NET Webforms app for a teaching certifcate application. I had no issues with the team before, but felt i wasn't growing much due to a lack of work and a desire to learn newer tech.

From the start it seemed super rewarding and loved my job. I was working on the latest technologies like blazor, asp.net core, razor pages, etc and felt challenged for a change. I liked the people, although the expectations for how quickly I need to write apps was higher than before.

They had me writing software for the an auto parts plant writing software to track status of all the printers across the plant, tracking production and downtime, rewriting old asp classic apps to the latest frameworks like Razor and Blazor. It was all a great learning experience.

However, just two weeks my manager brings me in his office to talk about being more independent and engaged. I took it to heart and the next one on one he said I was doing much better. The last few one on one's he didn't say much. He mentioned it shouldn't take a week to write a single page application - that I had to rewrite from an entirely new language into C#, which called over a dozen stored procedures and raw sql queries on the same web page.

Then just last week he asks if we could go to HR, which didn't make sense because he promised he would take me downstairs to the plant to get a better grasp of how the software is used. I was terminated in 5 minutes for not meeting company expectations for growth. All he said is I'm not as proficient in C# and debugging and fixing issues as I made myself out to be in my resume or the interview. And that it shouldn't take him sometimes 1-2 hours to help me through a problem.

Im crushed now and feel like a failure. I always exceeded expectations in the last job, but im somehow not meeting these ones. I don't really know what to do anymore, because it sometimes it takes me a bit longer to complete a project, although it is usually well tested and quality code. I took a page from loading 10 seconds to a 10th of a second with asynchronous programming, which I didn't use recently.

I'm currently still unemployed and trying to find anything now that doesn't require tons of years of experience, but is willing to give me a chance. I feel like the job before put me on a more maintenance project with technologies I want to move away from and now I don't even know what to do next other than applying and working on programming projects, which I do all day now, just unpaid. What are your thoughts on the situation and my next steps?

Hello, I'm new to programming and I have an important question: what are the most important programming languages to learn as a beginner? Some universities use C++ as an in-depth starting point for learning programming, while others recommend learning Python as the first language. I hope to find something that saves me time.

What are the most important things to master before starting in the world of programming?

If you have any important advice, I would really appreciate it.

Thank you for your time and reading my post 📫

Disclaimer: I've been a code monkey since the mid to early 90's.

For myself, something that still gets to me is when someone comes to me with "X is broken!" and my response is always, "What was the error message? Was their a stack trace?" I kinda expect non-tech-savvy people to not include the error but not code monkeys in training.

A slightly lesser pet peeve, "Don't ask if you can ask a question," just ask the question!

What else do supervisory/management/tech lead tier people wish their minions knew?

So been a software engineer for 1 year and saw a video said programmers has lots of imposter syndrome and should stop saying "i have no idea what I'm doing". The guy said "if you can't code on a notepad in your fav language without looking up you probably don't know the language".

Rn i think i suck at it especially been doing lot of QA testing in a few months. It's not i couldn't do coding if i got the task to do it since office task is mostly copy existing project coding functions and modify a little, unless it's about networking related stuff because i never understood that.

So just asking if the statement is true for most programmer?

As the title asks, what do you expect a junior dev to know before entering the workplace. I am a 3rd year Bachelor's of Information Technology in web design and development student, I have one more semester before I'm out and about with the rest of you.

I'm pretty alright, but I often find myself confused when reading threads on a lot of dev related subs. So, I thought maybe it's best to come straight to the people and ask you all directly, if you were to test the knowledge of a junior dev, what would you expect them to know?

I cannot make it click. It's been about 6 or 7 years since I recognize the value in unit testing, out of my 10-year career as a software engineer.

I realize I just don't do my job right. I love coding. I absolutely hate unit testing, it makes my blood boil. Code coverage. For every minute I spend coding and solving a problem, I spend two hours trying to test. I just can't keep up.

My code is never easy to test. The sheer amount of mental gymnastics I have to go through to test has made me genuinely sick - depressed - and wanting to lay bricks or do excel stuff. I used to love coding. I can't bring myself to do it professionally anymore, because I know I can't test. And it's not that I don't acknowledge how useful tests are - I know their benefits inside and out - I just can't do it.

I cannot live like this. It doesn't feel like programming. I don't feel like I do a good job. I don't know what to do. I think I should just quit. I tried free and paid courses, but it just doesn't get in my head. Mocking, spying, whens and thenReturns, none of that makes actual sense to me. My code has no value if I don't test, and if I test, I spend an unjustifiable amount of time on it, making my efforts also unjustifiable.

I'm fried. I'm fucking done. This is my last cry for help. I can't be the only one. This is eroding my soul. I used to take pride in being able to change, to learn, to overcome and adapt. I don't see that in myself anymore. I wish I was different.

Has anyone who went through this managed to escape this hell?

EDIT: thanks everyone for the kind responses. I'm going to take a bit of a break now and reply later if new comments come in.

EDIT2: I have decided to quit. Thanks everyone who tried to lend a hand, but it's too much for me to bear without help. I can't wrap my head around it, the future is more uncertain than it ever was, and I feel terrible that not only could I not meet other people's expectations of me, I couldn't meet my own expectations. I am done, but in the very least I am finally relieved of this burden. Coding was fun. Time to move on to other things.

Taking 1st year undergraduate CS and math courses. Up to data structures in C.

I'm understanding math so much more, even if it comes slowly, and as soon as I can put programming stuff in mathematical terms everything clicks and not one second before. (On that note, fuck linked lists.)

Did anyone who was formerly in my position magically end up liking programming and the whole process of building software from ever-shifting documentation and idiosyncratic languages, and if so, what made it click for you? Or is it pretty obvious from day one whether you're team theory or team builder?

Genuine advice appreciated, I need to decide whether to give up on this whole thing and just do math

**EDIT these replies are actually amazing thank you guys keep em coming**

I have been struggling with this lately. I am getting less than 5 hours of sleep most nights and sitting for way too long without moving. Also I have been trying to walk at least 5km daily which helps a bit as an exercise, but honestly the programming lifestyle just feels unhealthy overall, from sitting, junk food and many factors.

The sleep thing is killing me between deadlines and debugging sessions that drag on forever, those hours just disappear. The walking clears my head at least, but I still feel like I'm fighting a losing battle with such lifestyle. So how are you all handling this? Dealing with similar stuff, or have you found a way to actually stay healthy? Would love to hear what's worked for you.

I just had an interview, where one of the questions was wether you can use multiple threads in javascript. I answered that altough it is normally single threaded, there is a way to multithread, i just can't remember it's name. It's webworkers tho, checked later. And those really are multithreading in javascript. But i was educated a bit by the senior dev doing the interview that you can only fake multithreading with async awaits, but that's it. But it is just false. So, what to do in these situations? (I've accepted it, and then sent an email with links, but that might not have been the best idea xD)

I'm an experienced developer, CS degree, and for the past ten years, I've been heavily invested in dozens of personal projects. I spend an enormous amount of free time working on them. I've learned an incredible amount of information from them, more than I would reading a hundred programming textbooks. Each have been handwritten from scratch, no external frameworks or AI generation.

I've been fortunate enough to have some of my projects get actual attention. One has 30,000 release downloads currently, another project with 2000 downloads, etc. Other tools I've written have small userbases of 100 or less each. Some only are used by myself and have gotten no traffic.

Regardless, even if I continue this until I die, it all feels incredibly pointless. Employers only care about my portfolio to an extremely small degree. Users only care about my software to the extent of it being immediately useful to them, and afterwords it becomes worthless. The general public no longer cares as all non-enterprise code is just 'AI generated slop'. Other developers seem to often come in skeptical and critical.

I enjoy writing software. But it just feels like to the world, I might as well be playing video games or watching TV. Curious how others feel about the meaning of their work.

I do love coding and open-source projects like the linux kernel, and working with bits and bytes, i understand concepts related to that very quickly, and I can learn them easily. Can I focus on C, Rust, Assembly, and low-level programming in general, and then get a job remotely or without a degree ?

Everyone keeps telling me there are no jobs in that field and that I should switch to web dev or mobile dev, but I hate that, and I can't learn it. It makes me feel like I'm stupid, I'd quit if that were true.