Max Petrosyan

Staff engineer, 17 years in. Honest answers: 1. No, you do not need C to get a job. Java alone has employed millions of people for decades. Keep going. 2. Learn C at some point, not first and not instead. Not because it is "real programming", but because it shows you what Java hides: memory, pointers, what an object actually costs. A month of C will make you a better Java developer. Do it when you are curious, not when you are scared. 3. Nobody knows what AI does to jobs. What I can tell you is that the people I see doing well understand what the code is doing, not just what it outputs. Building mods is exactly that kind of learning. 4. Yes, Linux counts. Every problem it gives you is a free lesson in how computers work. A pointer is a variable that holds a memory address instead of a value. That is the whole idea. Everything scary about it comes later. And Frank is grumpy, but he is not wrong about the fundamentals, only about the order.

Hey Max, ex-AAA game dev here (8 years at a big studio in Montréal). What worked with my own parents, a long time ago: 1. Show the numbers, not the game. 3.4k downloads means 3,400 people chose to install your code. Show your dad the Modrinth page, the download count, the issues people opened, your commit history. That's a portfolio. Most CS students don't have users. 2. Explain one bug like an engineer. Not "the mod broke", but "my mixin injects into a rendering method, it crashed when another mod injected into the same method, so I had to change the injection point". Parents understand "I solved a hard problem" even if they don't understand the words. 3. Translate it: you're writing Java against a huge codebase you didn't write, with almost no docs, while other people's code breaks yours. That was literally my old job. 4. Robotics club is not a waste, honestly. Hardware, teamwork, and your parents are happy, which buys you more modding time. Ce n'est pas pantoute une perte de temps. 5. College apps: yes, an open source project with real users is great. Write about the 3-hour mixin bug in your essay. Bonne chance !