I’m improving my programming skills and wanted to hear what others think is most important right now.
Which skills or languages are worth focusing on in 2025?
How do you keep learning without getting overwhelmed?
Any advice you’d give to someone still building their foundation?
Just looking for general discussion and shared experiences no services or promotions.
There is nothing special about the modern era that should change how you should first get into software development.
Develop the fundamentals, so that you can adapt to any situation. It's clear that you are trying to "predict the future" about what technology will be hot. It's not possible, especially for someone like you who is a newibe.
Furthermore, seasoned professionals cannot predict the future either, however, they can shape it and that's as close as they can get.
"The best way to predict the future is to build it."
Anyway, the easiest way to stop being overwhelmed is to stop seeking advice on software, stop listening to opinions and to stop having opinions that are not informed by your experience. You're too new to have an opinion.
Choose one style, one method, do it to completion till the end, then, you have a baseline that you will be able to compare other experiences against.
Almost everyone online is doing cult-development, and, when you research tech, software, and programming this dynamic is also present.
The incentive structure is to keep you listening, and often times, this includes psychological tricks that mind-fuck you, or exploit insecurity.
Ex: A headline for a YouTube might exploit insecurities like so:
"I Wish I Knew This ONE GameChanger When I Leaned Software (wasted so much time)"
This headline, which I made up, exploits humans' desire to find a "golden nugget," a secret, forbidden knowledge that plebians don't know which is holding them back.
It also exploits the desire for shortcuts in a newbie: "wasted so much time".
So, instead of giving a straightforward, simple, but not easy gameplan to get started, you have to watch and piece together 100's hours of content, which you can't even confirm is worth it given you are a newb.
So, I'll offer this advice. Don't use YouTube. Go to a college's website, look at the syllabus for Computer Science or Software Engineering major, then, just go through the courses one-by-one, completing each of the projects.
Read the books, do the recommended problems, and you'll be on equally footing as a graduate.
Choose one course, and don't do anything else until you complete it.
Usually, the first two courses in a Computer Science degree are usually all you need to be able to do any programming project afterward, for the most part, I would say maybe 90% of projects.
