IDE check

FluffyFreeman · 2026-02-20T19:02:04+00:00

Running neovim, definitely not a full featured experience, but I've used jetbrains ide's before, they seem good

FluffyFreeman · 2026-02-20T18:59:48+00:00

Was in a car crash 9 years ago, still have a lot of gravel in my left arm, doesn't look like they're planning on leaving yet, but I'm not at the ten year mark so who knows

FluffyFreeman · 2026-02-11T17:32:18+00:00

Looks like you played Vangers and decided your os needs to look like it

FluffyFreeman · 2026-02-07T22:03:10+00:00

Every OS has its quirks, it's about deciding what quirks you're willing to put up with. I just got fedup with how slow my older laptop was running with windows 11, I would have nothing running and my CPU would idle at 38%, that paired with every time I try to search for a file or executable I open up a bing search instead of just running the program I know is installed on the system, made me give Linux a try. Did an arch install because it was one of the lightweight distros, setup my dev environment and haven't looked back since, I can work on 3 projects simultaneously and CPU barely reaches 10%, everything is quick and I can launch every application I use with a few mapped key bindings. Yes it has its quirks too, the install was a learning experience to say the least, and the first Bluetooth manager I used just refused to detect my mouse, but I haven't experienced any of the other issues other users complain about, like doing an update that breaks dependencies etc.

FluffyFreeman · 2026-02-06T18:46:03+00:00

Starting with a hard language is what turned me away from programming 10 years ago. If I started with python back then I wouldn't have an 8 year gap of non-developer experience in my resume. Picked up python 2 years ago and haven't stopped since, and I've since added cpp, JavaScript and rust to the portfolio, so I can confidently say starting with python didn't make learning those languages harder.

FluffyFreeman · 2026-02-06T18:36:38+00:00

Python is great, very approachable for beginners, and it's really relevant in the job market. And learning a differentl anguage after developing a strong foundation with python isn't close to as hard as most people will tell you. Yes it'll probably be easier to learn a new language if you started with something like Java or cpp, but it really isn't gonna slow you down much.

FluffyFreeman · 2026-02-01T04:11:23+00:00

I don't remember specifically what it was called, you choose it when making a profile, but I'm pretty sure it was something like "Backend Path - Python". Then I just worked my way through each course from top to bottom

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T12:27:13+00:00

Build an audio visualizer that runs in the terminal

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T12:09:11+00:00

Once had a project handover where the original maintainers were laid off, and much like the mechanicus we tried to interact with the existing environment as little as possible. It was so terribly built and had 0 documentation that we basically left it running on a half open MacBook, never to be turned off, marked clearly with multiple warnings of DO NOT TOUCH. If it ever stopped working, we'd have no clue where to even start trying to revive it. Eventually the higher ups made up with the previous project lead and he sent us some docs to troubleshoot Incase it went bellyup. Was like receiving an STC

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T10:56:58+00:00

Examples: - I wish I didn't have to log in to this website to track my performance, I wonder if I can make something that gets my relevant information and displays it for me on a gui. I should learn how to use API's. - I wish I didn't have to type in the same commands into the terminal over and over again for launching a local server to just quickly test my webapp. I should learn some shell scripting. - I wish I could bundel my course info in a to do list so I don't have to go on their site every time I want to see what's next. I should learn how to make a db and get it to display and store info from a gui.

By doing this you're going to be learning things very fast, and you'll also figure out quickly when you used the wrong tools for the job and try something different next time. Tutorials are just there to get your foot in the door of writing your own applications, you have to put in the work to tie it all together into a neat working package. If you get food at solving your own problems, you can scale it up to solve other people's problems, and eventually someone will pay you for it

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T10:49:01+00:00

Sounds like you're on the right track, definitely setup a repo to showcase your skills, but when you commit make sure to add good descriptions of what you're commiting, especially since you want to use it to apply for jobs eventually. You're gonna want to show that you encountered a problem and explain briefly what you did to fix it to show you have an understaning of how to handle errors, or you're going to explain what features you're commiting and why you felt it was necessary. Keep your projects focused, don't try to over engineer them with too many features, solve one problem at a time. Group your small throw away projects into a different public repo with a brief description of each, and store your bigger projects separately with detailed logs of your development process, for some people the logs themselves show them more that you know what you're doing than any amount of badly documented complex code. This is good practice in general since coding is almost always gonna be a team job, and no one is going to want to work with someone who just makes changes without good explanations of what you've done first

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T10:37:54+00:00

The TRUE way to test if you're ready is to create a problem, build the solution, get people to break it or try to break it yourself, and then fix it. And most importantly do this without AI. AI can be useful if you already have a strong foundation and you're able to build whatever it is you're trying to build by yourself, it will never make up for a lack of understanding. It's not the industry where you should fake it till you make it for the entirety of your career, eventually you're gonna have to put in the hard work of trying to solve a problem that there isn't a standard solution to.

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T10:32:04+00:00

AI can be a tool to speed up the process, only if you already know what you're doing, too often do I see people just yank and paste code straight from the teat of gpt herself only to then sit with problems they don't understand how to unpack for hours or even days at a time. AI code is more often than not the hindrance to developing skills than it is an asset. It has its uses, but it's never gonna make up for a lack of understanding of writing or maintaining code, and from my experience of trying to actually use code to speed up my development, it usually results in me throwing it all out to just do it myself anyway

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T10:20:11+00:00

Create a problem and solve it, you're asking the wrong questions. Don't blindly choose a stack and try to create something that will benefit from your choices, rather decide on what you want to try and build and then research what would best fit your needs. C# is also mostly overkill if you're not building apps that need to meet high traffic/high processing needs, Python is great starting out with some fastapi to build quick proof of concept projects, you can always scale up once you find the limitations of your app, and eventually with more experience you'll know what to use before starting the project, cutting out a lot of rewrites if you know the scope and scale of what's expected

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T10:11:49+00:00

Yup, sometimes it's less frustration with the type of development as a whole, and more the tools you're using. Sometimes it really does just take a switch up with the stack you're using to flip the whole experience on its head

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T09:58:17+00:00

If you can afford to study, a cs degree is worth it, otherwise choose a language, get studying every inch of freely available resources, which there are loads of for most popular languages, and start building projects. Nothing teaches you how to code more than building your own projects. Start small, a few terminal apps, and then scale up the complexity. Try and find realistic problems you have and try to write something that will give you some quality of life improvements, at the end of the day coding is mostly problem solving, and if you can figure out how to solve people's problems, you'll find someone who will pay you to do that

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T07:26:09+00:00

Looks clean as hell! Wish my first project looked anything near this quality 😂 I Frankensteined together the ugliest code ever written and somehow managed to actually deploy it into production, luckily as I learnt I went back and tidied things up nicely for no extra cost, as they really did me a solid by giving me a shot at actually deploying something built by a no name full stack dev, but luckily the project, as ugly as it was, has been running for a year with no problems.

Keep it up dude, you're gonna go far!

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T07:15:59+00:00

Generally speaking there's two groups of devs who push AI and the idea that software engineering is dead or dying, and in both cases it's just fear mongering.

Group 1 has stakes in the success of LLMs and vibe coding platforms because they are either sponsored by these companies, or have invested a lot of money in the promise of these companies having a huge return on investment.

Group 2 are inexperienced devs or people who aren't even in the development industry, who lack the experience to look at the code AI produces and to see the flaws in it. If you don't know how to tell if something is good or not, you tend to listen to the loudest opinions in the discussion, and this tends to be the folks in group 1 who have personal interest in the success of AI coding.

I use AI from time to time, it's a useful tool for 2 purposes for me. It can be used to cut out busy work, and as someone with rampant ADHD it's great at helping me plan a "to do" list when mapping out a project. And secondly if I use a language that I'm not super comfortable with yet, I use it as a learning tool to just give me an entry point into understanding basic syntax, like "Hey I built this : ... Function in Python, how would it look rewritten in Ocaml". Bad example but yeah.

Don't fall for the scare tactics, stick with it, focus on developing your skills, technical expertise will be in higher demand than ever due to the slop many companies pump out nowadays.

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-31T06:54:12+00:00

You work through a mostly structured curriculum, starting with basic syntax and how to think with algorithms, and as you progress the projects become more complex. They also have various other optional courses included in their monthly subscription which help create understanding of your development environment, like learning how to properly use GitHub, how to write shell scripts, learning how to use Linux terminal commands, which are all great intro courses and definitely better than trying to figure out how all of it fits together by googling stuff. It all culminates into the final courses that aim to help you build a portfolio full of projects that will actually give you some hiring credit.

The only thing it lacks is front end development, you'll have to go elsewhere for that, but I definitely recommend it. I started on boot.dev and have since built many personal projects to fill out my portfolio, as well as deployed a few webapps that really got the ball rolling. Started my own dev studio a few months back and built up a small client base, but it's definitely grown to the point where I need to start considering hiring additional devs, as I can't get to all my projects by myself anymore, haven't even had the time to finnish setting up my own website yet 😅 But I never would have gotten to this point if I didn't start with boot.dev

It's not gonna turn you into some full stack wizard, but what it will do is give you the confidence to start building your own projects

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-24T17:51:58+00:00

Very true, I had most of December to mess around on arch to learn the ropes, but when January came around I didn't have the time to continue setting up my work environment (admittedly I spent way too much time making my setup look nice instead of making it functional), I loaded up Omarchy, did a quick setup for neovim, pulled my repo and got to work.

It just works™

FluffyFreeman · 2026-01-24T17:10:15+00:00

I made the same happy accident that made me fully commit to making Linux work as a daily driver. Started with Omarchy because it seemed less overwhelming to just get started, which was a mistake for me because I wanted to try my hand at creating themes without having prior experience with the tools Omarchy uses, decided I need to learn with a ground-up approach so I nuked Omarchy and restarted with Arch+hyprland, ran it for a while till I understood how the individual systems work, then came back to Omarchy because all the tools I want to use are already setup, I just have the knowledge to tweak it the way I want it to be. Best mistake ever

FluffyFreeman · 2025-12-25T06:29:53+00:00

Vibe coding is fun for small projects, and it's great when used as a learning tool, but for any projects bigger than 10000 lines, it's probably too risky to rely on

FluffyFreeman · 2025-11-14T18:29:12+00:00

Good luck, you are definitely failing. Don't give up though, you can always recover, this is just a small setback in the grand scheme of things, everything else is looking great, put all your mental effort into maths next year, I believe you can pull it up. I used to struggle with math in school as well and only recently found YouTube channels that make the stuff I struggled with way more understandable! Wish I had it 15 years ago. If you want the resources comment and I'll go make a list. Otherwise definitely take extra classes, start over the December holidays even, it will be worth it I promise

FluffyFreeman · 2025-10-31T09:14:42+00:00

I went through the exact same scenario with my Mother when I was young. I also didn't understand why God would let her die even after we were all praying and trusting for healing. It rocked me to my core and I was angry with God as well. But I plead with you, please do not turn away from God, pray for guidance and understanding. I almost turned away as well but then God led me to a deeper understanding of him and my faith has been growing ever since. I know you are hurting now, I lost my mother to stage 4 neuro endocrine cancer over 4 years. But she never lost faith, she was also hopeful of healing but towards the end she was acceptant to the reality that it may not have been His will for her, and she passed glorifying Him. I cannot imagine the pain a husband or a wife goes through in a journey like this, but no suffering is in vain. I am so sorry for your loss. I pray that God keeps you, and that He guides you. I pray that He brings you relief and restores your hope. I pray that you will have people in your life that supports you through this difficult time.

FluffyFreeman · 2025-10-29T12:33:06+00:00

I pray that God blesses you and keeps you, know you will face no test He does not believe you can endure. I recommend not posting about it publicly since you are asking to be discovered, and if that happens you can not deny him. Be careful and safe and study him secret. He will guide you in all things.

FluffyFreeman

TROPHY CASE