Programming

Imagine you went back in time and met yourself when you wrote your first line. What do you wish you had known? What programs are the most important? What language would you have learned first?

I guess Bon Bon’s forgive and move on with her life era was an unsustainable lifestyle for her. She’s currently in her Elle Woods era (again) pretending she has even the slightest clue what RICO is. Hint, Bon Bon: RICO in itself isn’t a “crime” like murder or kidnapping. Also, RICO as a whole covers a host of crimes typically related to organized crime. I don’t think EEH and Aunt Ringleader getting together at their weekly Operation Ruin Bonnie meeting to delete your TikTok account while you were in Puerto Rico quite reaches the threshold for the feds to investigate, but I’ve been wrong in the past. Perhaps there’s an entire team of agents working in a closed off room in an undisclosed location to find out who got your TikTok deleted.

Oh wait a minute… your account was deleted because you got banned because there was a pending lawsuit against you for the things you were saying on that account. There were other reasons as well, but no need to beat a dead horse. I guess the federal agents can redirect their sleuthing skills to figuring out who ordered and then canceled your Barbie Dream House Amazon wishlist prompting the greatest video of yours in which you tearfully thank your generous benefactor and lament that good karma is coming your way 😂😂 I LOVE that video.

Anyway Bonster, I’m a little disappointed that you lasted less than 24 hours in your promise to move on and not let “these people” invade your energetic aura or whatever the fuck you call that demonic fog that surrounds you. As always, you’re pathetic, your current lighting scheme is not doing you any favors, you’re a waste of space, and you are a pitiful excuse of a mother.

What tip would you give yourself when you first started programming?

Maybe it’s a hot topic here but almost every program you can go on is good. I see people obsessing over which program to run.

What I’ve found is:

If you just try to lift more fucking weight every week or two, and try to workout each muscle group minimum once but preferably twice… the program doesn’t matter as much…

I was very excited to come across the article: and was eagerly waiting for pattern matching to land.

One of my app is on Java 21 so I decided to use it. Currently most of the app logic does not really bother with checked exceptions and it throws RuntimeException or some special subclass of it. Places where we want to handle certain such exceptions and do something different, we just have a try block that catches that specific exception.

This does create some brittle code as changing the exception thrown by a method may inadvertently break a catch block if we don't have specific tests for it.

I am trying to convert those classes where the actual exception originates to instead return a Result<> type that may contain either a value or an Exception of some sort.

I decided to implement a generic Result type for all such methods that may throw exceptions (all code at the boundary of my app like remote service callers etc):

import java.util.function.Function;
import java.util.function.Supplier;

@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
public sealed interface Result<T> permits Result.Ok, Result.Err {
    record Ok<T>(T value) implements Result<T> { }
    record Err<T, E extends Exception>(E error) implements Result<T> { }

    static <T> Result<T> ok(T value) {
        return new Ok<>(value);
    }
    static <T> Result<T> err(Exception error) {
        return new Err<>(error);
    }

    default Result<T> orElse(T other) {
        return this.isErr() ? new Ok<>(other) : this;
    }

    default Result<T> orElseGet(Function<Exception, T> function) {
        if (this instanceof Err<T, ? extends Exception> err) {
            return new Ok<>(function.apply(err.error()));
        } else {
            return this;
        }
    }

    default Result<T> orElseGet(Supplier<T> supplier) {
        if (this instanceof Err<T, ? extends Exception> err) {
            return new Ok<>(supplier.get());
        } else {
            return this;
        }
    }

    default <V> Result<V> map(Function<T, V> function) {
        if (this instanceof Ok<T> ok) {
            return Result.ok(function.apply(ok.value()));
        } else {
            return (Result<V>) this;
        }
    }

    default <V> Result<V> flatMap(Function<T, Result<V>> function) {
        if (this instanceof Ok<T> ok) {
            return function.apply(ok.value());
        } else {
            return (Result<V>) this;
        }
    }

    default <V> Result<V> mapErr(Function<? super Exception, V> function) {
        if (this instanceof Err<T, Exception> err) {
            return Result.ok(function.apply(err.error()));
        } else {
            return (Result<V>) this;
        }
    }
}

So far so good, but I have a few places where I am unsatisfied with this:

First, and this is just a nitpick, the declaration for Err<V, E extends Exception> looks weird to me. I would have rather it looked like Err<E extends Exception>.

Secondly, and this is the bigger concern, when I want to check for specific errors, it would seem like I would still have to do instanceof checks at runtime. For instance, say I have

class RemoteService {
  public Result<String> call() {
    try {
      return Result.ok(makeCall());
    } catch (HttpException e) {
      return Result.err(e);
    }
  }
}

class Caller {
  public void doWork() {
    var result = remote.call();
    switch (result) {
      case Ok(var value) -> println(value);
      case Err(var ex) -> {
        // this could also be expressed as guarded patterns but the point still holds
        if (ex instanceof HttpException) {
          // do something like a retry
        } else {
          // if not, do something else
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

If the RemoteService.call implementation ever changes to throw HttpClientException and HttpServerException separately istead of HttpException then I would need to manually make sure all my callers are updated - the compiler would not help here.

One way to mitigate this is to create separate Result types for each such method such that the exception type is strongly typed. But this can quickly lead to too many Result types in the codebase.

The third one is that when I make a call and get back a Result type and then I need to transform the value to some other value (via the map call) before I return it to the upper caller, it will allocate another Result instance. Hopefully, this one though, will be mitigated by Valhalla.

As the title suggests, I'm curious about how programming has evolved for everyone over the past decade.

From my perspective, the skill set required has significantly broadened. When I first started as an intern in college, my primary focus was just writing code. Now, as my career has progressed, I’ve had to adapt to a much wider range of responsibilities. It's no longer enough to be a skilled programmer; we also need to be proficient in DevOps, databases, and infrastructure tools.

In the beginning, it was all about mastering a single programming language and producing code. But now, I find myself juggling multiple languages, frameworks, and tools. The role of a developer has become so broad that specializing seems almost impossible. There have been times when I could focus solely on being a React developer, Angular developer, or a backend guru. But now, it feels like I need to be a jack-of-all-trades, which can be overwhelming.

I’m not a fan of this trend. I miss the days when I could concentrate on a specific area and excel in it. How has your experience been? Do you feel the same pressure to diversify your skills, or have you found a way to specialize effectively? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences!

Hi all, software engineer (professionally) here. I genuinely HATE modeling, making art, etc. Not because I don't like it and want to make some neat stuff, I'm just horrible at it. I want to make games but it is so discouraging doing so when I have to make models, animations, etc. Does anyone have advice? I would genuinely appreciate it so much. Thank you!

Got promoted to senior dev this year. Along with that my actual time programming has almost gone to zero. Spending most of my work week training others, writing documentation, building design diagrams, and meetings with other seniors and leadership. Due to this I am feeling my actual programming skills are suffering. Don't use it lose it scenario. What do other guys in a similar position do to keep their coding skills sharp? Motivation is an issue for me I need to care about what I am working on and nothing leetcode just burns me out quickly.

To clarify the modern c is by Jens Gustedt. I heard alot of praises for both of these amazing books. I have been saving up for one of them and now i got the money (im 14 btw so had to save a lil for the modern approach) so im asking for ur unbiased recommendations based on my c knowledge from cs50x. If u recommend another book id love to take a look at it.

This post is as the title describes it. I made this using a research paper found . The size of the bubble represents the usage of energy to run the program in joules, larger bubbles means more energy. On the X Axis you have execution speed in milliseconds with bubbles closer to the origin being faster (less time to execute). The Y Axis is memory usage for the application with closer to the origin using less memory used over time. These values are that's really important to know because that means we aren't using absolute values here but instead we essentially make a scale using the most efficient values. So it's not that C used only 1 megabyte but that C was so small that it has been normalized to 1.00 meaning it was the smallest average code across tests. That being said however C wasn't the smallest. Pascal was. C was the fastest* and most energy efficient though with Rust tailing behind.

The study used as a framework for 13 applications in 27 different programming languages to get a level field for each language. They also mention using a chrestomathy repository called Rosetta Code for everyday use case. This helps their normal values represent more of a normal code base and not just a highly optimized one.

The memory measured is the accumulative amount of memory used through the application’s lifecycle measured using the time tool in Unix systems. The other data metrics are rather complicated and you may need to read the paper to understand how they measured them.

The graph was made by me and I am not affiliated with the research paper. It was done in 2021.

Here's the tests they ran.

| Task                   | Description                                             | Size/Iteration |
|------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------|------
| n-body                 | Double precision N-body simulation                      | 50M               
| fannkuchredux          | Indexed access to tiny integer sequence                 | 12               
| spectralnorm           | Eigenvalue using the power method                       | 5,500           
| mandelbrot             | Generate Mandelbrot set portable bitmap file            | 16,000            
| pidigits               | Streaming arbitrary precision arithmetic                | 10,000       
| regex-redux            | Match DNA 8mers and substitute magic patterns           | -                 
| fasta output           | Generate and write random DNA sequences                 | 25M   
| k-nucleotide           | Hashtable update and k-nucleotide strings               | -             
| fasta output           | Generate and write random DNA sequences                 | 25M               
| reversecomplement      | Read DNA sequences, write their reverse-complement      | -                 
| binary-trees           | Allocate, traverse and deallocate many binary trees     | 21                
| chameneosredux         | Symmetrical thread rendezvous requests                  | 6M                
| meteorcontest          | Search for solutions to shape packing puzzle            | 2,098             
| thread-ring            | Switch from thread to thread passing one token          | 50M              

//EDIT2: Thank you all for valuable tips on improving my skills but also for making me reflect on myself and my journey. I got so hung up on who I want to be and who I'm not that I didn't ask myself who I am now. I never celebrate my victories and I treat every step forward as I would simply fulfil some long overdue requirement. It's not healthy. Writing this post, I never expected that it will result in me embarking on a journey to fix my mental heath.

ORIGINAL POST: I've been a developer for 5 years and I feel like I have maybe 1 worth of experience. Over the years I've worked for dead end companies, I've never had any guidance, the only 1:1s I've had with my managers was a welcome meetings and goodbye meetings when I switched companies. My depression also didn't help with honing my skills. I've been mainly doing Java backend but i touched some React and countless other tools/frameworks but I'm not really good at anything.

Sure, I think I'm quite smart and if I get a task, I will get it done no matter the technology. But at this point, I doubt I would pass any interview. Can I write an algorithm in Java? Sure. Do I know any patterns? Nope. Can I explain multithreading like I really know what I'm talking about? Nope. I've used spring in most projects but can I explain how it works? Nope. I know what cloud is as a concept but have I ever deployed anything to cloud? Nope.

Don't get me wrong. If you ask me to write whatever application from scratch and deploy it to cloud, I'll grab documentation, find the right tools and I will succeed. Same as I would build a chair if needed but it doesn't make me a carpenter. If I went to an interview and I've had to answer questions on how would I do any of it from the top of my head, I would fail sooo badly.

I've mainly worked in consulting doing projects too boring and tedious to give them to in-house developers. It was fine when I was struggling with depression as nobody expected too much from me but now I feel like I wasted my best years. For half of my career I've been writing terrible desktop applications in Java 8 with overblown business logic for industries where technological progress is an enemy and IT departments would not exist if that was an option.

I feel that there's so much I should have learned on the job over they years but I know nothing. What should I do? How to improve myself as a developer?

I thought, I should maybe take a course on let's say Java and learn the missing pieces but I would be waisting time since I know most of the content. Should I then only learn things I don't know? Sure but I don't even know what I don't know.

An easy answer would be 'do a pet project'. Sure but I would still use maybe 10% of tools I should know by now and doing 50% of things I already know.

I could probably just ditch IT and it would take the same amount of effort to get good in a different field as it will take to get me where I should be in programming by now.

So the big question would be: How can I asses my knowledge, find areas for improvement and fill the gaps?

EDIT: One thing I wanted to add. I've never, not even once in my life had negative feedback and it drives me crazy. When I had worse episodes of my depression I would not do anything for two weeks, then write some code intensively for two days and again spend two weeks in bed, I would only attend daily standups, make something up and everyone was still happy with my performance. I would pray for someone to call my BS and set me straight but NOPE, 'keep up the good work'.

So, I've done some Python and some Go already and I don't want to learn C as if I am completely a beginner. I want to learn the unique parts of C but don't need to be taught what a for loop is or anything. Ideally, I'd love something that would walk through teaching me C while at the same time pointing out what is different from other languages. Like if someone was learning Go I might not teach them what a for loop is but I would teach them that Go has 4 basic versions and there's no such thing as a while loop.
I'm by no means an expert in programming with either Go or Python but I know the basics.

Any youtube video/series that won't spend a lot of time teaching me stuff that's unnecessary. I'm reading a book on Operating Systems (OSTEP) and I just want C to follow the exercises and write little 'scripts' to check my understanding.

Maybe this is not the right place to post this but I need advice from those who were motivated and got their CCNP or are currently motivated to obtain the CCNP. And of you were a programmer and switched to network engineering and regret it, please do share your experience or vice versa

I was a systems engineer for most of my career and worked with a alot of imaging and asset management using SCCMs SQL engine. I got bored of SCCM as is a glorified help desk role. I wanted to be a network engineer so I got my ccna in 2019 and while I was studying for my ccnp I applied for noc and networking roles but no one was calling back. One recruiter advised to shelf network engineering as it's very difficult to land a job on.

Fast forward, having some experience with SQL and scripting I got lucky and landed a programmer job in the education technology sector and I've been doing it for 2 years. Most of the projects involve building reports, not rocket science. The pay is very far away from 6 figures. I miss infrastructure and so CCNP has been on my radar lately.

Some folk say stick to data, but my concern is I don't have a computer science degree but i do have a history degree and an active CCNA. if I continue to ride out SQL and apply for developer or better paying data roles, I'll be wasting my time since ill be going up against computer science or data scientist degree holders.

Or do I drop another thousand dollars in CCNP training and give pursuing a network engineer role another try. Are enterprises budgeting for network infrastructure refreshes? or is getting the CCNP nowadays just limits you to service providers/MSPs?

Both options seem the same but I think sticking with programming won't increase my salary without a computer science degree. I also feel infrastructure roles are a bit more stable.

In the end Im getting old, working with SCCM should have gave that away haha I think is called Intune now. So yeah maybe both paths suck these days.

I appreciate your input and good luck with the CCNP.

?

I graduated university in 2021 and started working for a FAANG company at around August of 2022. I was very shocked to learn that most of what I knew in university didn't transfer over, as I did not have a decent understanding of actually writing code. I felt as if any work I did would need others to help and guide me to the finish line, even until recently I could not finish 90% of my work without someone eventually stepping in and getting me to the finish line.

I noticed that I work much slower than most of my peers as they all had much more experience than me and I was the youngest on the team and most of these guys have 7-8 years of experience. I got much better towards the end of these two years and understand the codebase much better as a result. I can now understand the intricacies of a web framework such as Angular, but I still would not consider myself a great developer by any means.

Recently I was moved due to a company restructuring, into a backend team working in Spring Boot in a completely different product/ codebase. I know absolutely nothing about Java although I'm trying my best to understand it and it's just really bizarre coming from a web dev background. I feel absolutely intimidated working within this, feels so unmotivating and scary. I want to do my best to learn but it feels like way too much for me.

I don't know what I should do here. Has anyone been in the same boat in their career? What helped you get out of it ?

Every club/SP that is recruiting is either focusing on Web Dev or AI/Ml no one is actually into competitive programming anymore at least that's what I was able to make out in my first year.

Are there any seniors who can guide on the clubs that I can join, or maybe make our own group to prepare for ACM-ICPC or something on codeforce?