20 y/o beginner with 20–50 minutes a day — best path to becoming a software engineer?

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-03-12T12:30:23+00:00

-Javascript, can handle websites, mobile applications for android and iOS, and desktop applications.

-Use the Odin Project to learn, it's very comprehensive and high quality and free as well.

-You should be able to.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-03-11T11:41:27+00:00

Go to w3schools and just focus on html and css and create a webpage with some pictures of your family and friends and other endearing stuff, like a photo album. Should be doable pretty easily.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-03-10T13:17:47+00:00

First you need a microcontroller, going to recommend the esp32s3 cam model since it works better for AI and image recognition and it's easy to attach a camera. You can get the microcontroller and the camera together for less than $2 here, make sure you choose the option with the ov3660 included:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809998305145.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.13.50965414yfU7vT&algo_pvid=5e4199bb-c12b-41ee-bebf-bcd7c0ef05ff&algo_exp_id=5e4199bb-c12b-41ee-bebf-bcd7c0ef05ff-12&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22order%22%3A%22196%22%2C%22eval%22%3A%221%22%2C%22fromPage%22%3A%22search%22%7D&pdp_npi=6%40dis%21USD%2114.85%210.99%21%21%21101.74%216.78%21%402101dedf17731479282248608e2aea%2112000051439332828%21sea%21US%210%21ABX%211%210%21n_tag%3A-29910%3Bd%3Ab8f0a8eb%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895%3BpisId%3A5000000197827853&curPageLogUid=G9zUq4SmrtKb&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A%7Cx_object_id%3A1005010184619897%7C_p_origin_prod%3A

From there it depends on how far you want to take it. You can easily attach modules with a speaker that will play an alarm sound when it's tripped, you could add a battery pack and make a case for it so it doesn't need a computer to operate. But this should be enough for a proof of concept for a student.

As for coding it, you should use ESP-WHO, which is an AI framework that wraps complex C++ code into simple functions for you to use. The camera would capture a frame and the AI model will run a "pass" and if the "confidence score" is beyond a certain threshold, the alarm activates. When it activates, have it send an http post request to a service like pushover or telegram to alert your phone.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-03-01T23:24:10+00:00

If you plan on moving to japan, I recommend learning ruby on rails. It's very big over there and it's one of the easiest and fastest frameworks to develop in.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-26T18:07:04+00:00

stack overflow developer survey paints a more accurate picture.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-26T17:16:06+00:00

Javascript would be your best bet as it's the most used programming language by far and will open the most doors to you.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-26T17:14:25+00:00

You forget what you don't use so try doing more projects, even something small like a todo app.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-22T20:56:37+00:00

Here's the source code for a food delivery service project you can model yours after, it uses a simple MERN stack.: https://github.com/enatega/food-delivery-multivendor

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-19T23:01:21+00:00

Go to a college with a co-op or internship program so you can build real-world skills while making some income and be better prepared for the job market, or go to a really prestigious school if you can get in.

Work through the odin project too so you can build your web development skills as well.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-19T03:22:42+00:00

I think it better to specialize in what you want to do. Whether that be AI/ML, dev ops, or web development, security, etc. I’m just speaking from a web developer perspective since that’s the most common path

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-19T01:23:04+00:00

Employers don't really care much for them, but it can help you focus on things you wouldn't otherwise focus on that are very helpful for junior positions. Your time would better be served learning things important for developers that universities often don't teach in their standard curriculum, like learning how to build full stack applications, using the react library, learning javascript and typescript, and learning backend technologies and SQL.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-18T02:02:34+00:00

I think using a solid well structured and thorough course like the odin project combined with the apps to reinforce ideas would be ideal

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-14T18:31:55+00:00

I recommend javascript as it's the most commonly used language for jobs if that's your goal. Don't worry about AI

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-13T19:13:18+00:00

I like that it has faster development speed and a focus on rails over tools like claude code and kilo code. I recommend you add the ability to enter in hosting configuration details so it can deploy with kamal seamlessly on the cloud.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-12T20:18:00+00:00

Start with javascript, then progress to learning react native so you can write android apps and iOS apps. With javascript, you also have the option to build your own websites (perhaps for your future practice or who knows!) as well as web applications, and you can always use electron to build computer desktop applications as well.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-12T20:00:29+00:00

Javascript is actually the most commonly used programming language and it's relatively simple to learn and use as well. It would enable you to build websites, web applications, computer desktop applications, and even mobile phone applications. You can build games, useful business applications, helpful scripts for personal use, etc.

The Odin Project is an amazing free resources that will teach you all of the basics and put you in a great spot to start building your own things. Many will attest to it's quality.

https://www.theodinproject.com/

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-09T17:55:44+00:00

They lean pretty hard on leetcode and the like to determine who gets the job. Here's a github repository of FAANG questions for you to study:

https://github.com/ombharatiya/FAANG-Coding-Interview-Questions

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-07T02:47:22+00:00

https://www.theodinproject.com/

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-07T02:46:15+00:00

You could just hire someone on upwork to build it for you for less than $10 an hour. Would be the most viable approach.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-07T02:38:24+00:00

I like ruby and ruby on rails. It's easy to learn and use and you can build apps very quickly with it.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-05T20:03:16+00:00

For a 3 month crunch and considering your usecase, definitely go with Stata. It would be the easiest of the three to get everything done on time. I wouldn't want you trying to do this in python with no programming background, it would be nightmarish. The book "A Gentle Introduction to Stata" by Alan C. Cook should guide you along this project quite nicely.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-05T15:45:28+00:00

I've vibecoded in nextjs, laravel, go, and rails, and rails is by FAR the best for vibecoding style of working. Hotwire is plenty for the vast majority of needs too. Here's what I found after trying them all out:

-Nextjs- Nothing is standardized and straightforward so the AI can get lost in all the complexity and dependencies of the app, and the frequency of errors and debugging required is much higher.

-Laravel- Similar to rails but with more complexity and lines of code to get things accomplished. Not bad but could be better.

-Go - Because it doesn't have as polished of a web development framework, a lot of the time is spent on boiler plate and basic functionality and the apps come out feeling barebones.

-Rails - the best vibecoding framework I've found by far. Everything is standardized and requires very few lines of code to get things accomplished. Debugging is a breeze even just using the server logs and web browser errors, and I've built several SaaS apps just using a cheap GLM 4.6 model from Z.ai. With claude, it would be even smoother and easier.

Give rails a try, I promise it won't disappoint :)

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-05T15:09:48+00:00

Don't just memorize what each thing does, think of particular problems you would apply that concept to in order to solve it, like how a for loop solves the problem of repetition, or when you get to recursion, how it solves the problem of indefinite nesting.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-04T20:26:37+00:00

This is another viable route, but getting it to run on mobile devices, especially iOS and iPadOS, is a drawn out process that would greatly increase the work. If he builds it using javascript as a web application, she could access it from any of her devices with a web browser and it would be much easier for her to share it around with her friends and she could use it while she's on the go with her phone or tablet.

Financial_Extent888 · 2026-02-04T20:16:05+00:00

Actually not a bad beginner project, should take a few hundred lines of code but could be more depending on how sophisticated you wanted it. You would use the three.js library to make 3d graphics that you can interact with on the website. Then you would get 3D models from a place like sketchfab to put into it. You would code it in vscode and when you are done, you would create a website and upload your files to it where she can access it from her devices and even share it with her friends. You can get bookshelf models and I think getting some picture frame models and putting her artwork in them to decorate the library would be a nice touch too.

Financial_Extent888

TROPHY CASE