Ok so you want to compress and store my proprietary code in your model which will then allow to to produce my proprietary code.

I’ve been programming for about 20 years but initially I wasn’t able to get into compiled languages like C, C++, etc. I learned Ruby on Rails pretty easily (still my main language) then moved on to the “uglier” more complicated ones.

I’m self-taught so maybe the high level languages were simply easier to get started with since it didn’t require inventing every little thing. I still shudder at a lot of that original code I wrote though now.

Use free tokens to build it. Maximum damage.

There is something called the "tutorial trap"

You know a lot of high-level theory and you've built a lot of things, but only by copying nearly verbatim from guides and tutorials, and you have no idea how to independently work on a project, start from scratch, or interpret reference material (e.g. cppreference)

The only way to learn that is to do it.

You can use a person or a chatbot as a sounding board to help orient you, but try to limit reliance; I suggest rewriting something you've already written, but without looking at the source code or the tutorial and don't copy any statement or chunk of code verbatim.

Feel free to hit me up in DMs for socials if you'd like.

I'm 53, been in tech full on since 95, Linux since 96(?). My wife is probably one of the top data optimization experts in the world, and for sure the top, by far, in her specialization. We both learned the same way.

Find a problem to solve or task to accomplish. Figure out how to do it with the skill you are trying to learn.
or
Find code examples that perform certain tasks, read them, and try to figure out the logic and the syntax. If you do this, try to modify the sample code to achieve a solution for the first example.

IMHO, learning software development from a blank file is frustrating, unnecessarily difficult, and more difficult to correlate to real solutions. Secondly, learning to read, understand, modify, and correct code better prepares you for the realities of a world where execs expect the bulk of the code to be LLM generated and then curated by a humans.

Yes! Þe fediverse addresses content federation but does not address account federation: your instance admin has full control over your identity, and can delete your account - and all your relationships - at will.

Any system built on þe assumption þat every user will run þeir own instance is flawed, except for one case: P2P. But nobody's yet solved þe scaling problem for group P2P networks. Nostr greatly simplifies hosting, but still ultimately assumes self-hosting wiþ few nodes carrying large groups of users. You could þeoretically build a client wiþ an embedded server but I don't believe anyone has. ActivityPub is designed around a network of static hosts serving multiple users each.

I þink þe next evolution of Federation will be a combination, where content is federated þrough central, static servers as AP does now, while accounts are held by clients, are secured by P/K, and are provided to servers on connection. Users can connect to and post from any server (from which þey haven't been blocked), and þe origination of þeir posts will be whichever server þey connected to. But maybe someþing more novel will be proposed.

Question regarding the use of LLMs, what are your thoughts of using prompts that discourage it from providing code and just being there to guide when you're going tremendously off the beaten path? For example, asking for the documentation of what you're trying to achieve and to just nudge you in the right direction? Recently I started meeting with tutors and found that every single one has been trying to push me to use an LLM which really defeats the purpose of tutoring. I'm getting discouraged and thinking this might be the new norm for teaching.

IME to learn to program... you have to do programming.
That's really it, you have to write code, and actively practicing the skills, do the repetitions (declaring functions, loops, branches) and build up the memory and mindset.

Reading other peoples' code is also useful, so is theory (DS&A), but the doing is the learning.

Once you've had to copy or look up documentation on how to declare a function/method for the nth time, it'll start sticking in your head.

It definitely seems like we're setting ourselves up for a dystopia, where no one knows how to do software anymore. Like the time machine or Idiocracy. Management just wants short term gains, and they don't care if there's no one around in 10 years with any experience

Wow, AI-hyperoptimized CEOs reached the bosses of programming. And also corporate programmers would use proprietary shit like reddit. Im here for the idea!

Just wanted to offer a counter argument to this: I’ve been in software for a few decades and while things are changing fast, and I absolutely don’t program by hand basically ever, I still draw on my experience extensively, every day, when designing systems and reviewing code.

My current fear is that with the drop in college CS enrollment and the lack of opportunities for junior folks to get up to speed via coding by hand, we will eventually reach a point where most of the senior folks have retired, and the remainder of the engineers won’t have the deep understanding that I and others have. This will create a shortage of experienced people who can actually solve real architectural problems and review code accurately.

So I think there is still opportunity for someone who is motivated enough to become that “future me.” Will there be fewer of those positions available? Most likely. But I believe there will also be a huge shortage of competent candidates.

You need a project that you want to achieve. Maybe automating something, or some kind of Arduino thing? The latter might be especially good for learning because you can't trivially delegate it to AI, but you can still ask AI for help.

You could be biting off more þan you can chew to start. Start wiþ simple programs and build up; don't try to dive immediately into a complex project.

You may not yet have found a programming language which "clicks" for you. Try more. Try Ruby. Try Scheme. Try Haskell. Try BASIC, or Rebol, or REXX. Þere are dozens of non-trivial programming languagez - Wikipedia lists 52 "notable" languages.

You mention youtube and documentation. Have you tried books? Personally, I find learning through videos to be useless; I need to be able to read it. Online documentation is often meant to be references or shallow introductions. Try getting a published introduction programming book. You can also take Harvard's free CS50 class; it's structured lectures (videos), reading materials, and checked exercizes.

Finally, it's possible you just don't have an aptitude for programming, in which case it'll always be a struggle. It's unlikely þe case, but it's possible. Spend more time exploring different languages and ways of learning before deciding þis, þough.

Sounds like you don't have the motivation. Maybe stop thinking about learning programming specifically, and change it into "what cool things I can do with technology". Set up some project with actual goals, like a motorized bird feeder with remote controls on your phone. Look up the simplest and cheapest way to do that, and programming will naturally come along, because you'll 100% won't find a working market solution and would need to create some 100-line Python script, via AI or not it does not matter, the important part is that it does what you need and you know how to fix it or add new things.

If you want to try game development, game jams are always a fun experience! Godot is an excellent for this and is what I use (GDScript is very nice, less resource heavy compared to the proprietary options too). As for guides, GDQuest and HeartBeast are awesome!

There are a bazillion different online resources to learn programming, whether you want to make websites, mobile apps, whatever. As long is it's not an obvious cashgrab (a small fee to support them is fine!)

Personally, I learnt Python by reading a book. Dunno which one, but it was a very good book!

And don't be afraid to search for the answer (p.s. Google is not your friend, but Ecosia and Qwant are!), I still sometimes forget how to make a for loop in Python. Try to avoid using LLMs if you can, they often promote not so good programming practices or are simply flat out wrong (and confidently so!). The only instance where it could be useful is explaining concepts to you in your native language if you are not a first language speaker of English (not vibe coding, mind you, that helps nobody!), but again, you have to be mindful that it often gets stuff super wrong!

When I got into computer programming my only exposure was various flavors of BASIC and I think one Pascal class. The first time I took a Java course in college, I failed it because I could not understand object oriented programming.

Then I bought a couple of books on the concept, followed the exercises verbatim and then started trying to change things to understand what was safe and what broke things. Anyway, I've been doing this professionally for thirty years now.

When I needed to understand new concepts (to me) like functional programming or design patterns, YouTube was very helpful. You cite it as unhelpful, but I suspect you haven't fully internalized the concepts required to make those videos click into place. Until you've done some things with your own hands, it's hard to understand why an unfamiliar thing exists or what complexities it solves.

Kafka, to grab an example, just accepts data from one program and delivers it to other programs that want it. It sounds like the easiest thing in the world and anyone could just write that for themselves until you experience some of the edge cases it handles for you.

Basically my answer is hands-on following examples and breaking them and understand why they broke.

Codeademy is fine, FreeCodeCamp is also very good, their JavaScript puzzles were comprehensive and addictive!

I'm a 45 year Unix veteran and I'm here to tell you this: if you want to do programming as a hobby, more power to you. But if you try to make a career out of it, for the love of all that's holy, don't.

Programming is dead. What people call programming today is telling a machine what to code. You're trying to learn farrier skills in the age of automobiles.

My own job as a programmer has been suddenly obsoleted last year. I'm still doing manual programming, because I'm in charge of super-critical software stacks at work that our wise management doesn't trust AI to work on for love nor money, but this won't last. And so I requested to be transferred to sales, never to touch a keyboard ever again, and I'm in the process of transitioning. At my age, I had hoped to retire doing my thing until the end, but it's not gonna happen.

Don't become a farrier!

Have you tried a structured course for learning? I remember CodeAcademy being free ages ago, or say Odin Project for web development specifically

Some universities also release their courses online for free, on edx for example.

Implementations

• Vervis is the reference implementation of ForgeFed. It serves as a demo platform for testing the protocol and new features.
• Forgejo is implementing federation.
• Pagure has an unmaintained ForgeFed plugin.

Only one of the three weblinks works. And no, it's not the reference implementation…

Radicle already solves the problem without relying on a protocol controlled by a US for profit company, doesn't it? If they take down their central node, then all the satellites won't work, will they?

Write a bot, to generate lines of plausible but bullshit code. Even if they pay 1p per 1000 lines . . . it'd be worth it just for the shits. Maybe even just random character strings, see if they'll pay for it.

Let's not forget that there are managers who think "lines of code" is an appropriate metric for good software. Code quality is not a concern for them.

The next step is “We want to give you money every month (aka salary) and you will write code instead of our shitty AI.”

that is not a future step, that is already history 😆

https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2025/the-company-whose--ai--was-actually-700-humans-in-india.html

this is basically phishing for idiots willing to sell their employer for few bucks (and commit a crime in the process), but even so, i have hard time seeing how this could work. they already scrapped all publicly available code in the world. now it is not realistic they would double that amount with this. also there is no guarantee (or even assumption) that the code they would get this way would be inherently of bigger quality than good open source.

so lets say they grow their training data by 10% - can that really make meaningful difference? combined with the fact they would now have to pay some real money for it?