Sure, but I want to point out that software development is kind of unique. I can’t think of too many other professional jobs where the line between hobby and work blends, for so many of its workers.

Let us be honest with ourselves, many of the toxic things in this industry are caused by a strong culture and “It’s my hobby, and I’m extremely passionate about it” mentality.

So people are willing to learn new skills in their spare time, unpaid of course. They’re willing to pull OT and weekend work, for the mission.

And those that don’t, are deemed lazy or fakes, not passionate enough.

You don’t see investment bankers / lawyers / management consultants / etc. go on about side projects, leveling up their skills during the weekend, and other things that are considered completely normal in this industry.

My point is - those are the types of people you’re up against. Those are the type of people many employers love.

If you have zero interest for the craft, and just plan on grinding for the money, there are other similarly lucrative ventures, which might align with your own interests, and where it is accepted to be in it for the money.

> You gotta want it. Do you want it enough to go through the tremendous amount of effort it takes to learn it? Maybe you hate programming, but you want the money enough. Maybe you don’t care about the money, but you want to program every second of the day.

> Just make sure you have the drive to make it happen.

Man this is so true

Given that there are many threads where 80% act as if AI would cause second coming I suspected that main topic of discussion here would be "is it worth learning CS at all in 2026?". To my (pleasant) surprise the discussion here is much more "normal". Does anyone suspect that some HN posts have a lot of astroturfing from AI-adjacent organisations?

Does anyone have any advice on tackling subjects like these for someone who hasn't done any math since high school more than a decade ago (and has forgotten it)?

Point 7.5 of this guide reminds me of the Einstellung effect, I built my own "pomodoro" timer with notifications saying "go stretch" or "go drink water" (https://github.com/reciperium/temporis in case someone is interested)

But this is the first guide that I know the material! I have “learned computer science” (somewhat). And I have to say it has propelled Beej’s other guides to the top of my reading list. The subchapters I skimmed and their content are just so relevant and I know many new and experienced devs (myself included) who would still benefit greatly from reading this. Just exceptionally well done.

All of his material is absolutely top notch. His guide to network programming was instrumental to both my understanding and career. It often feels like thanks isn't quite enough.

> But don’t be fooled. Just because AI can solve your school problems doesn’t mean it can solve the real-world problems you’re going to face in your work. (As of now, it can’t.)

This is a good point. And it’s unfortunate we can’t see how much these things are tuned for demos like solving classic HW problems.

Being that said, at the moment I'm trying to implement a simple non-blocking TLS server in Python with a custom protocol (no external deps, only built-ins) and couldn't find a single guide online that treats the topic. Having read the Python documentation it appears that there are a lot of nuances and pitfalls to correctly implement it. This was my impression after reading the docs, though I could be wrong.

I haven't checked if current Beej's guide covers the topic, in case it doesn't, did anyone embarked in doing this with success?

The Python docs on the topic: https://docs.python.org/3/library/ssl.html#ssl-nonblocking

Want to be a professional accompanist? Good luck. You better have been taught since you were a child and quickly picked up sight-reading and were good at it for the last 20 years.

Anyway, the audience is

> Undergrad students just getting into programming

so it's naturally biased toward the engineering part of the subject.