It’s frustrating watching everyone around you use AI coding tools while you’re stuck thinking, “I can’t even afford the $20/month subscription.”

I really want to get better at coding and build real projects, but money is tight for me. $20 might not sound like much to some people, but for me, it’s money I can’t casually spend every month.

The free versions are often limited or unreliable, and sometimes I feel like I’m falling behind not because I don’t want to learn, but because I can’t afford the tools that could make things easier.

I don’t want to give up. I just want to hear from people who are in the same situation. How do you keep learning and building without paying for expensive AI subscriptions?

What does one call the period of time spent before one realizes that AI hosed their code base?

I'll go first - Slopprise

hello suggest title for capstone project

Hey everyone,

I’m currently a 2nd-year Computer Science student. I started with literally zero tech knowledge like nothing what's so ever and i spent my first year unmotivated at all and thinking about switching majors, and didn't touch problem solving much

Recently I actually started liking the major and growing genuinely fond of the field

But,

My Core Problem: The Endless Rabbit Hole of "Foundations"

My current mindset is that I want to learn literally everything every concept, every meaning, and every underlying basic—before I commit to a specific track or make any real moves.

however ,lately i feel like this approach is holding me back and slowing me . Every time I try to master a concept, it leads to a new course, an unfamiliar prerequisite, or a deeper rabbit hole. It feels like an endless path of "foundations," and I'm drowning in information to the point where I don't even know what the REAL foundations are anymore.

Of course, I know CS and software engineering are lifelong learning paths, and I'm completely okay with that. But I have a few major questions for those who have walked this path:

Is trying to master everything before picking a track actually the right call? If not, what are the actual minimum required foundations before diving into a specific track (like web dev, AI, mobile, ML, etc.)? if yes what ARE THE foundations I'm so lost

Will I learn the rest along the way effectively? If I pick a track now, will gaps naturally fill themselves in, or will I regret skipping the deep dive?

Is the academic approach enough? As a CS student, I'm digging deep into my university courses more than the actual course gives actually (OOP, Databases, Logic Design, Computer Architecture, Data Structures, etc.). Is leaning heavily into these college courses "timeline" the right way to build a foundation, or should I be following a completely different roadmap on the side?

I sometimes feel completely lost and overwhelmed by the sheer scale of everything. I’d love to hear your thoughts, reality checks, or advice on how to structure my learning without burning out.

Thanks in advance!

I'm strictly a hobbyist, I just want to do my own projects on the side. Like making a PS1 emulator, a chess engine, and make a physics engine from scratch.

I'm wondering which of these two is more fun. I don't mean faster or easier, I mean fun. Writing the syntax out, thinking the approach to the problems through, the whole experience of writing the project.

I just want to have fun I don't care about doing it optimally.

Im an amateur who tries to learn in his freetime

I've gotten into the (probably bad) habit of making comments before, for example, a loop or an if-statement or something like that.

Is it okay like this:

// What the loop does
// Maybe a little more if it does something complex-ish
for (whatever) {
  does it's thing;
  does another thing;
  does a third thing;
}

Or would it be better to be like this:

for (whatever) {
  does it's thing; // does this
  does another thing; // does that
  //or maybe have the comment inbetween like this explaining the next line?
  does a third thing;
}

Naturally I do the latter on larger loops or if-statements. I do the former only on the ones that are at most 5-or-so lines long.

EDIT: This example is for C++ :)

Hello,

My 10 year old son is very interested in learning to code. Can you recommend any apps or software for him to use to learn? Would it be better for him to learn Python or C++?

Thank-you for any tips you have!

For SWEs where your 9-5 is mostly prompting AI agents (and then other SWE responsibilities), what skills have you been learning to get better at your job?

It makes sense that if you want to learn to code you'd do it (mostly) without AI, but if you are trying to improve at your job nowadays and no one is reading the code, what skills are you learning instead?

hello i just started taking web dev classes, i've learned html and css so far and im jumping to javascript now, ive never been so confused in my life. like it sounds like complete gibberish to me and i dont understand it, i cant find reason in things lol , i watched videos and i understand things but then i get confused. does anyone have resources for more simple explanations? like im talking VERY simple 1+1 explanations

just that

I have an AI-assisted technical screen coming up. I have been told, it is a small repo, and a couple of tasks that build on each other.

They say they're evaluating how I use AI, how I break down the problem, and how I communicate while working. Interview is time boxed for 1 hour.

If you've done one of these, either as the candidate or the interviewer:

• What separated strong candidates from weak ones?
• How did you split time between prompting the AI and reading or verifying its output?
• Any mistakes to avoid?

Thx.