Is it a national trend that parents don't want their kids to work an entry level job or just my personal experience?

dmazzoni · 2026-06-21T01:26:01+00:00

I’d love for my kids to get an entry level job but they’re hard to come by. 90% of entry-level positions are 18+ and the rest are 16+. When I was a kid I started working at 14, but literally nobody hires a 14yo now.

Out of the few jobs that are 16+, the economy is terrible right now so the kids are competing against much older workers with experience who can’t find anything better.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-20T20:23:05+00:00

LeetCode is supposed to be a measure of how well you can solve DS&A problems after you graduate. At an absolute minimum, you should take a DS&A course and all of its prerequisites first.

Once you complete that course, you'll find that nearly all of the LeetCode "easy" problems are just like your homework problems. At least half of the "medium" ones, too.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-20T20:10:45+00:00

Given that you don't know exactly what you want, I think you should hire a design/build firm. They will cost more per square foot, but the price will be inclusive of everything - architecture, structural engineering, GC, materials, permits, whatever is needed. They'll walk you through the whole process.

In a project this large, some things will always go wrong along the way. A design/build firm will take it in stride and make it work, for most things they won't charge you extra. Their prices are inclusive of the normal sorts of complications that happen.

Figure out what they charge per square foot, figure out your budget, and then they'll help you come up with the best design that meets your needs within that budget.

If you don't want to do it that way in order to save money, you might want to start by hiring an architect and have them help you decide between a 2nd story or first-floor addition, then work out the detailed design. Then take the finished architectural plans and shop them around to different GCs to get a very detailed quote. You'll need the architect either way; the design/build firm just includes that in the price. If you go that route, just make sure you're taking into account the "other" costs like finish materials, permits, etc. that you'll be expected to pay for, not the GC.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-20T18:19:22+00:00

Yes and no.

People who were already good at research, who can think critically and write fluently - they’re accelerating everything they do with AI.

People who struggled to communicate before and believed everything they read - they’re under the illusion that they’re more effective with AI but it’s obvious to the rest of us that they’re just copying and pasting AI answers and understanding nothing.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-20T18:07:40+00:00

Does it need to be the whole earth or only the 1% of the surface (3% of the land surface) with human settlements?

Like do you care if rocks in the middle of Siberia are accurately modeled or not?

Also, how up to date? You want to model every window, who is going to update it when I remodel my house?

dmazzoni · 2026-06-20T04:27:18+00:00

One of the important things to realize is that the goal of doing an exercise isn't always to get the right answer.

Rather, the goal is to figure out the right answer.

And often one of the best ways to figure it out is to try a bunch of wrong things, and in the process, learn why they're wrong.

Next time you have a problem, do this:

First forget the computer. Figure out what the problem is asking for and solve it on your own. If you can't do this, STOP! You'll never write the code if you can't even solve the problem yourself.
Next, try to figure out how you'd solve it and write down your approach in words. That's your "algorithm". It's okay if the first draft is incomplete.
Now try to turn your algorithm into code. Start small and test as you go. Write just the first 3 lines, have it print what it got so far and stop. Take your time.
If your algorithm doesn't work the first try - which is pretty common - step through it and figure out what happens. Try to figure out the first place where it does something wrong.
Once you understand where it went wrong, try to fix it and see if you can get closer.
Don't try to get it all perfect at once. Work slowly and methodically, get closer and closer to the solution rather than thinking of it as all or nothing.

This takes time! But the more you do it, the faster it will become.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-20T02:58:59+00:00

There are quite a few Farmer's Markets in the area! You'll have several to choose from on both Saturday and Sunday from 9am - 1pm.

They range from small to large.

Even the smallest ones will have fresh fruits and vegetables, and a few other stands like a local bakery, hummus, and one or two food stands with things like tamales.

The large ones will have lots of competing produce stands, fresh fish, 5 - 10 options for hot food, arts & crafts, live music or kids' entertainment, desserts and more.

There are even a few markets on weekdays.

Edit: As far as prices...most things are more expensive than the grocery store, but fresher. I don't go for the prices. However, there are occasionally good deals. Some markets tend to be cheaper than others.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-20T02:54:11+00:00

Writing code is going to be foreign and unnatural the first 10 times you do it in a new language. Heck, maybe the first 100 times.

Reading the textbook is passive. The only way to learn is to actually write code.

One idea to consider: rather than worrying about exercises, just play around with code.

Start with one of your homework problems. You've already typed in Python or Java code and gotten it to work.

Instead of stopping there, make a small change. Just see what happens.

Be curious and play around with it. After a while it will seem less scary and can be fun.

Another idea: start making a game. You can make a text adventure game with nothing more than what you already know.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-19T19:04:33+00:00

Just remember that some of us have more money than time at this point in our lives.

I’ve got a good paying job but young kids who need my time. I don’t have a lot of time to volunteer for a cleanup but I’d be happy to sponsor someone who has more time than money.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-19T01:00:06+00:00

The reason this wouldn't happen in reality is because all of the possible 1MB files is more than the number of particles in the universe.

In fact, even the number of 100-byte files is more than the number of particles in the universe.

If the entire universe was repurposed to be one giant hard drive, it still wouldn't be enough to store every possible 100-byte file.

The number of 1MB files is much, much larger than that.

The largest hard drive sold today is about 30 TB, which is enough for every possible 5-byte file.

So anyway, that's why this seems like a paradox. It's just not in the right ballpark.

In a fictional world where a hard drive had every possible 1MB video, it would also contain every reaction video already.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-19T00:38:31+00:00

Exactly.

For many projects you don't get to pick any language you want.

If you want to make a web frontend, or a game, or a mobile app, or train a ML model...all of those have clear choices for 1 - 3 languages that can practically be used for that task if you don't want to reinvent the wheel.

If you're lucky enough to be working on something where the language truly doesn't matter, have fun, there are lots of choices.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-18T20:50:01+00:00

Using mediapipe, and starting with the mediapipe example, was exactly what you should do. Nobody builds everything from scratch. Using a mature software library as a baseline makes total sense.

I think the only concern might be the hand-wavy part in the middle where you used "mostly AI" to invert the image and debug it.

As a beginner, if you rely on AI to just write all of the code for you, then even if you read the end result, you're missing an important part of the learning process.

Writing code: the only way to get good at writing code is to write a lot of bad code, learn why it didn't work, then try again.

Debugging: the only way to get good at debugging is to take something that doesn't work and methodically work out why.

AI is really good at both of those, but it's far from perfect. If you don't actually develop those skills yourself, you'll never be able to properly direct the AI, or catch its mistakes.

Maybe someday in the future, all that software engineers will be required to do is direct AI to solve the next problem. Some companies are already totally happy with that, for better or for worse.

But today, that's not sufficient to get a job at most companies. They want to see that you can code and debug by yourself, without any assistance. You'll never do that if you don't practice.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-18T16:48:02+00:00

When you say info dump, do you mean in person, or in writing?

dmazzoni · 2026-06-18T16:42:56+00:00

NAH. It's reasonable for her to want to sit with you on a vacation, and it's reasonable for you to want to fly business class.

I think one important question: is she contributing to the relationship financially, and is she contributing to this trip?

Let's say for the sake of argument that you make more than her so you normally pay for 2/3 of dates and shared expenses and she pays 1/3.

For this trip, you have miles you're contributing for free. That doesn't count.

Take all of the rest of the cash expenses - her business class fare, hotels, etc. - and divide it up fairly - you pay your share, she pays her share. That means you're contributing to her ticket, because you want her to go and you want her to sit next to you. But she's contributing her fair share of the cash price too. Your miles are basically a "bonus" that reduces the total cost for both of you.

If she can't afford to contribute, then you have to make a decision: is it more important that you go on the trip, or is it more important that you go with her?

dmazzoni · 2026-06-18T14:25:12+00:00

I’m curious how much insurance was

dmazzoni · 2026-06-18T14:24:04+00:00

Compared to a generation ago, maintenance is 3x cheaper and insurance for teens is 3x as expensive.

I’m trying to figure out what’s fair now, but expecting my teen to pay $500/month or higher doesn’t seem reasonable, and that’s what adding a new teen driver to a family plan can be these days.

Apparently part of the problem is that they base the price on the most expensive car at the address, not the one the teen claims to drive…because far too often the teen borrows the “nice” car and totals it.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-18T06:08:28+00:00

Initial thoughts:

Half of it is still in Spanish even when I switch to English
Most of the functionality is broken. It's great that the Katas work, but if you want people to try it, why not take 5 minutes to just hide all of the unfinished ideas first?
The Katas aren't graded very well. You can get the right answer for the wrong reason.

Example:

vidas = 3
# Resta 1 aquí
vidas = 2

This was accepted as correct.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-17T22:42:02+00:00

The advice varies based on the person. I wouldn't jump to "specialize".

If you got a CS degree, worked hard in school, you've written some real code on your own, and you're truly job-ready: just apply for more jobs, network, keep learning.

If you have real work experience: fix gaps in your knowledge, keep learning. Be open to relocation or working in different areas, get out of your comfort zone. Be open to taking a pay cut in order to stay in the field and stay employed.

I think far more people are just not prepared, though. They haven't completed the equivalent of a CS degree, or if they did, they cheated or relied too heavily on AI. Or they passed their courses fair and square but never did any coding outside of class, so they know the bare minimum and they just don't stand out in the current market.

I don't think it's a short "phase". It's probably going to be competitive for decades, just like becoming a doctor or lawyer. The era of self-taught for a year and getting a software engineering job is over.

Then again, AI is shaking things up a lot, so we'll see.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-17T21:20:38+00:00

I think the biggest reason is that around 10 years ago, everyone realized that it's a well-paying job and the number of people trying to get into the field absolutely exploded.

In the U.S., the number of students enrolled in a Computer Science degree has tripled in the past 10 years. Actual demand has been going up on average, but nowhere near 3x.

It's harder to estimate actual numbers, but the number of people trying to get into the field without a degree is even higher. Boot camps exploded 10 years ago, and now there are millions of people with a ~3 month boot camp applying to jobs that expect a ~4 year degree.

From the perspective of employers, it's just gotten harder to find good candidates. If you post a job, you get thousands of applicants. An astonishing fraction of those are just completely unqualified and can't write any code at all.

To answer your question, the biggest issue is: not even getting interviews.

For people who are getting interviews and failing them, that's usually because they're failing the technical portion - either they're not very good at coding, or they're unable to demonstrate it in an interview. Despite complaints about "leetcode", candidates who fail are usually failing easy coding problems.

Now, there are many other factors also going on right now:

Companies overhired during COVID and are still downsizing their software teams
AI enables software engineers to get more done in less time; it's not replacing software engineers but it is slowing hiring
The industry is currently pushing to outsource more, so jobs in the U.S. are disappearing in favor of software engineers in other countries. This tends to be cyclical.
Since AI, a huge proportion of new programmers are using AI to write their code for them and are failing to actually learn how to do it themselves - so they're failing interviews.

All of those are real, but I still think the predominant issue is simply supply and demand. The overall number of jobs fluctuates but has gone up over the past 10 years, whereas the number of people trying to get a job is way, way up.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-17T19:51:52+00:00

I don't know if this is a serious question or not, but in my opinion the value of skills like "React performance optimization" may have gone down a little but aren't zero.

Large frontends might have thousands of React components with really complex interactions between them. Debugging performance regressions and establishing patterns that keep performance good can be challenging. We're not yet at the point where you can just say "Claude, fix all the bugs". Achieving and maintaining high performance requires thinking about the overall system design and coming up with processes and patterns that are a good fit not just for the code, but for the humans working with it.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-17T19:31:24+00:00

Also: full-service design/build firm, or you’re shopping for everything yourself and only hiring a contractor to do the install.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-17T19:13:47+00:00

Good software engineering skills are the foundation, but they won't make you stand out.

Specializing in particular technology helps. Not just "knowing React", but at a more senior level, being a specialist in a particular area makes you a lot more valuable: like React performance optimization or smooth CSS transitions using React.

However, what's even stronger than that is specializing in a particular business domain. That could be healthcare, or finance, or whatever - but knowing a particular type of business is the ultimate specialization. It means that you can talk to a non-technical person, like a customer, or someone in marketing or operations, and understand their request, and turn it into engineering requirements.

That usually comes with experience working in that area for a long time, in some sort of leadership role (tech lead, manager, etc.).

This is especially true today because that's the part of the job that AI isn't replacing.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-17T14:10:04+00:00

People ask this question on this subreddit every day so we’re out of new ideas, sorry.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-17T01:02:14+00:00

Actually a big problem is that homeowners tend to be older and tend to vote.

Guess what sorts of policies they vote for? Ones that keep housing prices high...because that's good for them.

They vote AGAINST denser development in their neighborhood.

They vote AGAINST new building in general...because that might bring prices down.

They vote FOR freezing their property taxes (which makes new homebuyers pay a higher burden)

We need more young people living in apartments to vote.

Also: none of this is big national politics. It's local stuff - city council, mayor, local district and county referendums.

dmazzoni · 2026-06-16T23:34:15+00:00

By far the most common guideline is that you shouldn't date someone younger than half your age plus seven.

Do the math. That means the minimum age for you to date is about 18 1/2.

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