Dunning-kruger Memes

Based On A True Story

4 days ago 74.5K views 0 shares

The eternal battle between sensible learning paths and delusional ambition. On one side, we have the experienced developer and redditor suggesting the radical concept of actually learning fundamentals before attempting to build the next tech unicorn. On the other, the starry-eyed novice who watched exactly one React tutorial and is now convinced they're just a weekend away from dethroning Bezos. The audacity of thinking you can build Amazon after a single "Learn React in 1 Hour!" video is the perfect encapsulation of Dunning-Kruger in its purest form. The confidence curve of programming: from "I can build anything!" at minute 61 to "I understand nothing" after 10 years of experience.

Four Years Of Programming Experience

Programming Webdev Debugging Frontend

22 days ago 62.9K views 0 shares

The eternal developer paradox captured in one image. Four years of coding and suddenly you're expected to be a guru? The confident cat on the left is what non-technical people imagine—a seasoned expert with "lots of knowledge." The traumatized cat on the right is the reality—staring into the void, questioning if you know anything at all. The more you learn, the more you realize how little you actually know. Four years in and you're still Googling how to center a div and wondering if anyone else feels like they're just making it up as they go. Spoiler alert: we all are.

I Should Stay Away From His Cars And Rockets

Programming AI

22 days ago 84.4K views 1 shares

I Should Stay Away From His Cars And Rockets

The classic Dunning-Kruger effect in its natural habitat. When someone's outside your domain, you nod along with the crowd. But the moment they step into your territory? The emperor's new clothes suddenly look like a Halloween costume from the dollar store. Every dev who's had to sit through a non-technical CEO's "revolutionary" ideas about coding knows this feeling. "Let's rewrite everything in a new language!" Sure, and let's also replace oxygen with cotton candy while we're at it. Trust me, if someone's software takes are garbage, their self-driving cars probably aren't making the best runtime decisions either.

I Know More Than You

Programming AI Algorithms StackOverflow Backend

23 days ago 89.6K views 0 shares

The face every senior dev makes when some kid who just discovered "Hello World" starts dropping hot takes about the industry. That classic list of naïve programming opinions is what we veterans call "peak Dunning-Kruger." Sure, LeetCode will definitely prepare you for building enterprise systems that handle millions of users. And yes, we senior engineers just type "how to code good" into Google faster than juniors. Nothing says "I've never built anything real" quite like claiming backend is just "hitting APIs." Eight years of experience? More like eight minutes on a JavaScript tutorial.

You Have Lots Of Knowledge

Programming StackOverflow

24 days ago 63.5K views 0 shares

Four years of programming and suddenly you're an "expert." The cat's face says it all – that mix of panic and impostor syndrome when someone mistakes your Stack Overflow copy-paste skills for actual knowledge. Truth is, after four years you've just figured out how much you don't know. The real experts are too busy fixing production outages caused by junior devs who thought they knew everything after their bootcamp.

The Bell Curve Of Programming Knowledge

C++ Webdev Programming

29 days ago 75.9K views 0 shares

The bell curve of C programming knowledge is brutal truth wrapped in a meme. On the far left, you've got the blissfully ignorant newbie who thinks "printf is magic!" On the far right, the battle-hardened veteran who's seen enough pointer arithmetic to know that simplicity is king. But that middle peak? That's where the insufferable "I watched Fireship's 100-second video so I'm basically Dennis Ritchie now" crowd lives. They've memorized just enough syntax to be dangerous but not enough to realize they're one segfault away from disaster. The duality of programming education in 2024: either spend years mastering the craft or watch a YouTube video and call it a day.

Self-Proclaimed ML Engineer Discovers How Strings Work

Python AI Algorithms Programming Debugging

1 month ago 109.8K views 0 shares

Self-Proclaimed ML Engineer Discovers How Strings Work

Behold, the "ML Engineer" who discovered that Python sorts strings alphabetically instead of numerically! The horror! Next breaking news: water is wet. What we're witnessing here is the classic "I didn't read the docs but it's definitely the language's fault" syndrome. Python's sorted() is working perfectly—it's sorting ["9%", "83%", "25%"] as strings, exactly as it should when you give it strings. Pro tip for our aspiring "ML Engineer": try sorted([int(x.strip('%')) for x in a]) next time. Or maybe stick to Excel?

I Want To Understand The Code In 10 Seconds

Programming StackOverflow Debugging

1 month ago 67.8K views 0 shares

I Want To Understand The Code In 10 Seconds

Ah, the drive-by code critic! Nothing says "I'm a real developer" like barging into a Twitch stream, spending 8 seconds pretending to understand what's happening, and then dropping the classic "this code is garbage" bomb before vanishing into the night. Zero contribution, maximum judgment - it's the equivalent of walking into a restaurant kitchen, sniffing once, and declaring "Gordon Ramsay would hate this" before sprinting out the door. The confidence-to-competence ratio is truly inspirational.

Local File Path: The Website That Never Was

AI Webdev Windows Programming

1 month ago 93.7K views 0 shares

Local File Path: The Website That Never Was

Oh, the sweet innocence of "I made a website with ChatGPT" followed by sending a local file path instead of a URL. That's like telling someone you're a chef because you microwaved a Hot Pocket. What we're witnessing here is the beautiful collision of Dunning-Kruger effect and file system confusion. Our friend thinks they've launched the next Facebook when they've really just saved an HTML file to their downloads folder. No server, no hosting, just pure unbridled confidence. The Windows file path is just *chef's kiss* perfect - nothing says "I'm a web developer" like trying to share C:\Users\ben\Downloads\index.html through iMessage.

And I Am The Wizard

Programming Debugging Testing Backend

1 month ago 78.3K views 0 shares

The bell curve of programming wisdom strikes again! At the far left, we have sweet summer children who think "computers are magic" because they've never had to debug a race condition at 2 AM. In the middle, the enlightened souls who understand the fundamental truth: computers only do exactly what you tell them to do, no more, no less. Then at the far right, we circle back to "computers are magic" – but this time it's the grizzled veterans who've seen so much unexplainable behavior that they've transcended rational explanation. "Why did restarting the server fix it? No idea. Magic. Ship it."

Not Actually Structless

Gamedev C++ Programming

1 month ago 102.6K views 0 shares

THE AUDACITY! Someone has the NERVE to mock DOOM's source code for having "no structs, no classes" only to get absolutely DESTROYED when they actually look inside and find—GASP—structs everywhere! 😱 The betrayal! The drama! It's like bragging about how your vegan friend eats no meat and then finding their freezer PACKED with bacon. The shocked cat face is literally all of us when our smug programming hot takes get obliterated by actual facts. Moral of the story: maybe CHECK the legendary code before trashing it, you absolute AMATEUR! 💅

Peak Of Mount Stupid

Programming Debugging

1 month ago 88.1K views 0 shares

The graph perfectly captures the infamous "Dunning-Kruger effect" in tech mentorship. That poor intern is stuck at the peak of "Mount Stupid" - where knowing just enough HTML and a for-loop has them convinced they're ready to rewrite the company codebase in Rust. Meanwhile, their actual skills are hovering somewhere between "can center a div" and "accidentally deleted production database." The real tragedy? We've all been that intern, strutting around with confidence inversely proportional to our knowledge, until reality hits like a merge conflict in a monorepo. The graph doesn't show the inevitable next phase: crying in the server room while questioning every career choice.

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