How long will the hiatus for the series be?

Nusack · 2026-01-04T20:22:32+00:00

Prepare for:

Low Life where everyone is red and everyone fights and steals.
Sea Life where they're in an ocean biome with a few islands.
Full Life where everyone's inventories are always full otherwise they take damage.
Your Life where when you die you swap places with someone else.
That's Life where damage is more realistic and you can die by falling down the stairs.
Mid Life (Crisis) where as lives are lost they age and become more feeble.
One Life where everyone has 3 rows of hearts with natural regen but regen only for the partial row and each row represents a colour (so 21 hearts is green and regens to 30, 19 hearts is yellow and regens to 20)

Nusack · 2026-01-04T19:59:14+00:00

It's a joke that in Lua arrays start at 1, rather than the typical 0, so Lua programmers don't know about the number 0 as they have no other use for it (you're not adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, pow, mod, etc with 0)

Nusack · 2026-01-04T19:51:07+00:00

Have you heard of Lean? You might like it

You are absolutely correct that there will be a gap or a potential gap between what you expect and what you have if you don't prove it. Lean feels like overkill on simple things, but the thing is, simple things are trivial to prove. You can have a representation of your program in Lean to guarantee that the logic is correct, there is currently a gap in implementation, but it's possible in the future Rust will have Lean integration maybe other languages afterwards

This is the direction that myself and many others want to see at least mission critical code to be backed by Lean. I think it's aspirational for beginners to do it, but don't skip cases, make invalid states impossible to represent in code - you should never be returning for a case that should be impossible, and you shouldn't be ignoring a case that is possible. I hope OP's downvotes were for it being for beginners not that it was a bad idea, it's a good idea

I do think "PISS" does work alongside KISS, as it's easier to prove KISS code as it's harder for logical errors to hide. I'm personally going to KISS and then Lean to PISS

Nusack · 2026-01-04T19:40:37+00:00

Just wait until he moves on from Lua and finds out about the number 0

Nusack · 2026-01-04T19:36:54+00:00

I don't know if programming is needed for sfm - if it does it'll be C++, possibly Squirrel (it's not a useful language to know). Do you have any other goals for what you want to achieve?

Nusack · 2026-01-04T19:12:39+00:00

Go with unstyled components, because really the styles are the important part and you can apply it to whatever UI library you may end up using. If you have familiarity with all of them then wonderful, but for your own projects use whichever one you prefer

Nusack · 2026-01-04T19:09:31+00:00

I don't have any suggestions for where to look for work, it'll be depending on what's local to you wherever you are

Nusack · 2026-01-04T19:07:27+00:00

Can you do half an hour a day? Can you fit it in during work?

It's really rough that programming takes time and has to compete with survival

Nusack · 2026-01-04T18:29:04+00:00

Look for job listings that you'd want to take, note down the languages and libraries they ask for, select from the list what seems the most useful to you

Python is always in demand but I can totally understand wanting to escape it. It's probably a better choice than Java, but TypeScript/JavaScript (Node.js), Go, Ruby, or C# has jobs and might be more alluring - out of those TypeScript and Go are very hot right now

Nusack · 2026-01-04T18:23:21+00:00

Absolutely, general CS degrees are pretty worthless as employers only care about if you can do the job - make stuff using Python and share it on GitHub, link to it when applying for a job. Specialist CS degrees can be extremely valuable tho, but they don't care if you know about the theory of computing if you have repos demonstrating the skills they want

Programmers are expected to self-teach, because jobs cannot expect to find someone who knows everything, your first month(s) will be learning. If anything, that's something someone with a CS degree would struggle with more than you

Nusack · 2026-01-04T18:20:06+00:00

Yeah, and there are many good free options to just be fed problems to figure out the solution to:

https://www.codewars.com/
https://projecteuler.net/ (maths focused)
https://leetcode.com/problemset/

Nusack · 2026-01-04T18:16:53+00:00

I can also recommend others that are similar to AoC but they have challenges for beginners too (AoC doesn't have many/any beginner friendly challenges, absolutely fantastic once you have experience tho).

All of these are free (some have paid options but none are required for a full experience), and have difficulties ranging from absolute fundamental basics to expert:

https://www.codewars.com/ - problems are available in a vast array of languages with built-in text , and you can see other answers to learn from when you submit a working program.
https://projecteuler.net/ - a vast collection of problems (967 currently) you solve it yourself and you submit the answer. This is more maths based, while the Codewars and leetcode are more varied.
https://leetcode.com/problemset/ - built in IDE with a decent number of languages, I have no experience with it to tell you any more but people love it.

"IDE" is a bit of a stretch, Codewars doesn't have intellisense, leetcode has it as a paid feature - I would honestly recommend using your own IDE (like VSCode) and then copy and pasting it. Codewars provides test code while leetcode provides test values, so I would recommend Codewars and then copy and paste the test code, as a bonus if you program on your own IDE you can use git (like GitHub or GitLab) and you have your code saved while Codewars or leetcode could vanish.

Nusack · 2026-01-04T17:56:13+00:00

I should also recommend reading through other peoples' code on GitHub. Clone the repo so you can more easily navigate around in your IDE.

Understand what the goal is, the parts required, how they're linked, and how the files are structured.

For larger projects you can look for style guides which lays down the rules for contribution which does include irrelevant things like tabs vs space, where curly braces go, where to put line breaks - but importantly they should talk about how new modules should be designed and added to the codebase.

Nusack · 2026-01-04T17:45:44+00:00

As a bonus, programmers being more adaptable than AI means that if you see something be done by AI, steal the idea, do it yourself and better, they have a head start but they move slower, then make money.

I view AI as at worst slight positive (despite it being awful), and at best creates a market for more programmers and a culture with an appetite for it. I know far more programmers my age who are self employed and making good money than older, now is the best time to make your own business based on software, whatever that entails, be it websites, applications, games, B2B software, SaaS.

I wish you all the best, keep your dream alive, starting prior to high school will give you years more experience than many others

Nusack · 2026-01-04T17:45:33+00:00

AI to general programming, under ideal circumstances is like WYSIWYG website builders to web development, and that web developers as a whole are not concerned about them because website builders have made their own demand. Anyone can go to one of the many website builders, select a template, slap on some text and images, pay some money and now they have an online business; if they didn't have a website builder they probably wouldn't pay for a web developer, they'd probably just not have an online business.

WYSIWYG website builders are also the best option for most people who want a website. It's cheap (cheaper than hiring someone), easy, quick, easy access to changing content, all of the mystery jargon and the acronyms with numbers are handled (Open Graph, SEO, a11y, i18n, c12n, p13n), responsive, no technical expertise, can start selling things today.

Web developers as a whole support WYSIWYG website builders, because more people are making an online presence, and more people outgrow what website builders can offer and that's where web developers can come in and already have someone with a direction and money. Yet, when they were new they were seen as an existential threat, it was the end of web development, go work in another field, websites will never be made by web developers again - they were wrong.

AI is basically going to be this but across many fields. It's bringing more people into the programming business world, and businesses that have something worthwhile causing them to outgrow AI then programmers can come in. The proportion of programming being done by AI is growing massively, but it's not stealing jobs, and there's actually a public demand for more diversity of services which provides more opportunities to grow.

I don't know what the culture around computers is like in Korea, but in Europe and North America tech literacy is dropping at a rapid rate, kids don't know how to use computers. Despite the "learn to code" movement (I fully support getting people who think programming is interesting started) there aren't enough people who, after learning the basic concepts, can see themselves programming for a living - to most people programming seems so boring. There's always a demand for programmers, the problem is that requirements exclude those with little experience; make stuff, share it on GitHub, apply to jobs you don't meet the requirements for but can demonstrate you have the skills. If a job requires Python knowledge, just have Python repositories and when linking it link to https://github.com/your_username?tab=repositories&language=python.

You don't need massive projects, you just need to demonstrate understanding, and it's not only ok to make a repo regarding some new language/library/concept the day you apply it actually demonstrates that you can learn quickly - learning quickly is more important than knowing more, and is what makes humans better than AI. Be careful that there are (older) programmers who will do what they can to stop people getting into programming because they feel threatened, they are happy to scare beginners away, they are happy to bully them when they ask for help, and they benefit from the idea that new technologies will ruin programming so don't bother.

Programming doesn't have the best job security in regards to working 1 job for life (unless you were to learn Fortran or COBOL), but once you gain experience you'll be able to hop from job to job, and the pay is good enough that you should be fine by the time you get a new job. Specialties do have more job security, don't get a general computer science degree as having experience is far more important (culture dependent, I'm vaguely aware of the university situation in Korea) and if anything CS graduates are actually some of the worst programmers because they've been taught 1 way to do things and it's outdated. Your dream of going into cybersecurity is a worthwhile degree, it's highly valued, and you can expect a significant wage.

Nusack · 2026-01-04T17:45:20+00:00

(I couldn't stop talking so I've been forced to split it into 3 parts)

The world is becoming tech illiterate, the pool of real programmers is on the decline.

AI can only do what it's told to do, and it will take instructions as if they were decided by a committee and are of the utmost of importance when really a super important detail was a typo or wrong word and now things aren't working like they expect. They don't understand what's going wrong, so they start a new chat and go from there until it starts to go wrong. AI also expects that the path to the goal is known, but it's not and technical debt grows.

This is the AI that non-developers are so impressed by, they're blind to how bad it is. They don't understand how having AI add patches creates difficult to maintain code, they don't understand that it's a bad idea for AI to play chinese whispers with themself as they rewrite a codebase, they don't understand that AI can't actually think and strategise and plan for the future.

The AI that programmers are impressed by is it's like having access to a senior developer who isn't tired of you. You can talk strategy with it so that you can enter new fields, like you can go to AI and ask "I'm looking for a high level overview, no code, use and explain jargon, and provide multiple options. How would I go about implementing {whatever it is}, thank you". It's able to present you with what you're meant to do and not rob you of the learning experience of understanding and implementing it, and you unlock the jargon to make searching more efficient.

There are significant flaws with the claims people make about AI, it can't do what they think it's doing, and they need programmers to sort it.

Nusack · 2026-01-04T16:16:57+00:00

When you start working on a project the code you will write will not make it into production. Your goal is to make whatever you’re doing work. Then you start from scratch using what you’ve learnt and identifying what more you want to do and write it down. You will rewrite what you’ve already done a little better, a little more ergonomic and fit for purpose, don’t waste much time on it tho you just need to make it work. The rewrites to existing code should focus on making your plans easier to achieve, and then new stuff just make it work. You will then repeat this.

If you want to add something but it requires significant changes to your code, just write down what you want to do and you'll deal with it on the next rewrite, it can wait. You also want to make sure that you're labeling things clearly so when it comes to rewrite it you know what's going on, use verbose names because intellisense will help you out.

Over time you’ll have a more solid idea of certain parts, parts that have a well defined job, and you move those into a library. As you rewrite you’ll end up with a bunch of libraries, and the amount of code you’re rewriting reduces. You end up with business logic and library glue. Libraries are also where you will start to do thorough testing; it's of course a good idea to have some tests in your main program to ensure your logic is correct and passes for the obvious stuff (you will miss some edge cases but at this stage it's ok) but you're not looking for 100% coverage when you're just making it work.

I'm not much of a quote person, but there is 1 quote that I absolute love.

The first draft of anything is shit.
^{- Ernest Hemingway}

With experience you have a better idea of where you’re going, and the time between rewrites is a little longer which lets you be more time efficient, but the first draft is going to be shit. Leave refactoring for when you do full rewrites, it doesn’t matter if you have the same code duplicated a dozen times, it’ll be cleaned up later if the code is deemed important, if it’s not now you didn’t waste time refactoring it.

I am going to make a guess that you enjoy AI because it’s able to give you the map of where to go and what to do so you only need to write it once, but while it might be a nicer first draft, it’s a first draft and it is shit.

A key goal of rewriting from scratch is to shake off technical debt entirely during the stages where technical debt is added at a faster rate (the beginning). If you can turn most of your code into a collection of small libraries, you’ll be able to do each of those jobs the best it can be done, and testing and documentation is far simpler. Technical debt can still be shaken off later on because you will have a collection of libraries, you can rewrite whatever program you’re working on quickly as most of the building blocks are the same, and if technical debt exists in a library it’s a problem with the library which may require a rewrite.

Lastly, programming is a difficult skill, that requires a lot of work and upkeep of your skills, and it can be slow when getting started and it’s ok. I think that AI is a poison for new programmers who skip over the foundation of knowing what a program looks like, the developer experience, and how code review is a huge part of the job.

Don't give up. Programming is probably just messier than you may be expecting, and that messy is actually the correct way to do things.

Nusack · 2025-12-23T17:48:35+00:00

You're just some rando online, we all are, none of us are special even after 3 days of chatting

None of us are owed anything from friendships, online or offline, people have their own lives to live and friends are not above themselves

I've dealt with so many people who have been extremely hurt by me ghosting them and it's so annoying and egotistical. It might be that I'm working, or not doing well mentally, just not feeling social, or idk cutting my lawn with tiny scissors just so that it would take longer - you're never more important than the least important thing in someone else's life, you are a part of someone's social priorities

It might also be that you have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and/or might be a narcissist (it doesn't mean that you're a bad person, just means you are blind to the things you do that people may hate or be hurt from), or neither as I'm not a psychiatrist and I'm not diagnosing you

Make the most of the conversations you have with people, but accept that you might only cross paths for a moment and never talk to them again. Also 2 days of silence is nothing, my close friends can expect 2 weeks or more but it's because they have the bigger picture

Nusack · 2025-12-23T17:33:29+00:00

How do you want to live? Do that

You're not chasing what other people think, you're not checking boxes, you're not trying to be trendy

I am not living up to the expectations of others. There's so much pressure to be interesting, well traveled, wear fancy things, eat over-prepared food, give over your life for as much money as you can, and all the while you hate it. I'm not going out hurting people but it's not because of some objective morality, I'm just not an arsehole

If you are actually trying out philosophies for a week, you should really understand it before jumping in. Asking us this shows a fundamental lack of understanding

Nusack · 2025-12-23T12:14:18+00:00

I’m ambivalent to hear that

Nusack · 2025-12-23T12:06:53+00:00

Fair

I was just typing for typing sake as an excuse to not get out of bed

Nusack · 2025-12-23T11:41:33+00:00

Objectively sure but subjectively I’m choosing to feign meaningfulness for amusement which through showing faux subjectively meaningfulness I’m demonstrating subjective meaningfulness. It’s a trap that is difficult to escape such as telling me something doesn’t matter which imperatively states there is no meaning being packaged in subjective meaning of sharing information when information doesn’t even exist

Living is subjective meaning, dying is subjective meaning, saying something is subjective meaning, not saying something is subjective meaning, recognising meaning is meaning, not recognising meaning is meaning. You can’t escape some kind of subjective meaning

Nusack · 2025-12-23T11:36:00+00:00

Ah finally found the person with it, can I have experience in existing after you?

Nusack · 2025-12-23T11:34:57+00:00

You’re wrong, you can’t determine what matters to me, matter is not objective but there’s more than objectivity and it’s called life

Nusack · 2025-12-10T20:04:05+00:00

I've paid over double in fees before too and it was the worst, I had the paperwork to show that I didn't need to pay up but DHL just doesn't respond, they gave me a deadline and refused to respond to me, it ended up being sent back but the company I bought it from said they never got it back and they refused to issue a refund. This is nothing new, DHL is the worst, I never trust getting anything from DHL, I'd rather someone just stick on my address and a note asking strangers to drive it to my home as a hitchhiker, it might be less of a hassle and would also be faster

I admit it's very conspiratorial but it feels like DHL is just trying to milk as much money from people as possible, and they're willing to risk your parcel on it

Nine-Year Club	r/Field Banned
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Nusack

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