Hi!! I'm jaysyrk, a 16 year old software dev. I have ADHD and bipolar 2. Because of how my brain runs, I code during intense hypomanic episodes where I'll just sit there and code for days on end. And because of the ADHD, my code has to be VERY organized with custom unicode dividers, em dashes, all that. I have them hardcoded into my keyboard Numpad.. If it isn't a perfect visual grid, my brain loses the thread and I can't survive as a dev.
Recently, I decided it was time to look toward my future, so I dumped multiple projects I've been working on since COVID onto Github, the main one being a custom logic engine and domain-specific language called Teleos DSL — by jaysyrk.
I posted it to a programming language community on Reddit, excited to finally show people what I built.
Instead, I got permanently banned and muted.
The mods told me that using Unicode dividers and writing 10,000 lines of incredibly clean code meant I was lying and using an LLM. I literally offered to hop on a call and break down the internal parsing logic line by line from memory. They didn't care. They just muted me so I couldn't even reply.
It sucked. BUT.. i have learned from this, i have created a background task in go that record my progress in my projects folder every 15 minutes so that if i accidentally don't upload to Github till the very end then I WILL STILL HAVE THE TIMLINE!!
Every 15 minutes, it checks if I’ve changed anything. If I have, it takes the 'git diff --stat' (which shows exactly how many lines I typed or deleted) and logs it.
But anyone can fake a regular text log. Sooooo... I used a hash chain. Every time it logs a new entry, it generates a SHA-256 hash by mixing the timestamp, the code changes, and the hash of the previous log entry.
It looks like this:
```text
┌─── TRACKER AUDIT: 2026-05-22 16:45:00 ───
│ Prev-Hash: 4a8b9c2d
│ Curr-Hash: f3e2d1c0
├─── CHANGES DETECTED ───
main.go | 42 ++++++++++++++------------
1 file changed, 22 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-)
└────────────────────────────────────────────────
```
Because every single 15-minute block is mathematically tied to the one before it, you cannot fake the timeline. If you try to go back and alter a single line or a timestamp from two days ago, the whole chain breaks. It’s literal, un—fakable proof of work done by ME AND ME ONLY!
We’re in a weird time in tech where if you write messy, chaotic code, you're a human, but if you maintain absolute crisp and clean architecture, people think you're a bot.
I’m keeping my Unicode lines and em dashes. I’m keeping my clean formatting. If the internet communities we have right now are too cynical to believe a teenager can write clean systems code, don't waste your energy begging them for an appeal. I just want to find a spot where I can get actual feedback and not get shut down for having code that's "too good to be true for a 16 year old".
first i want to say, im sorry for the experience you had in that community. that sucks. i myself have some things i want to share, and kind dont, because in the past the few times i have has been either the work get stolen, or tons of people dont bother reading the work and then instead try to simply attack the post because thats all they know how to do. im also new to this place, because i've heard it might be a little different here, and there might be more "peers" that measure the work itself for its effectiveness or not. but atm i'm in the "watch and lurk" phase to see what is actually like here before i share too much.
so i hope for you, that you do find a community where you can share your work, and find peers to discuss it for its own merits.
be proud of what you make, and your willingness to dedicate such effort to things. and your unique mind. your young, but imo, that shouldn't be a factor in analyzing your work. work product is work product.
as far as your efforts to prove it. thats cool you did that. but also, i wouldn't care as much about whither other people, especially reddit, believe your code is yours or not. remember most people on reddit are trolling. their not there to have a productive convo. and likely not there to actually check out someones work. and likely if you posted your proofs, those same folks would likely not even look at it. these typically aren't people that look to discover what the facts are, so they can derive the truth from facts. instead they decide what they want the truth to be, and then look for evidence that supports that truth, and ignore anything else.
well. not all of course, but many many exist like that in communities like reddit.
---
some of what you say here resonates with me.
im not adhd or biopolar or anything, but the part about intense episodes where you code on end? thats me too in a way, just.. not episodes.. its all i do. i've kinda always described it as an addition. and i think it is. so i wonder if for you its also an addiction. like people like you or i, have trained our brains to release dopamine when solving problems, discovering knowledge, completing tasks, creating things. so seeking out that "perpetual flow state" becomes our pen-ultimate satisfaction of our addiction.
maybe my experience isn't the same for you, but figured i'd share that incase it resonates with you and possibly helps you understand your mind from another lens.
---
as far as what you mention about organizing your code, and your NEED to do so, i get that too. and do something similar. so figured i would mention that as well, since it sounds like in that regards we are also of a similar mindset. maybe if i share how i handle that "need for organization" it would help you as well.
so what i do. is i created my own "styling framework" as i guess many would call it. i work in c# lately, so the standard/tools i built to automate this for me are in that language. i call mine "CVEC" or "Cognitive Visual Ergonomic Coding". the core concept, is that our brains have "systems 1" and "systems 2" thinking/processing, and that we can leverage that. the mechanism i use sounds similar to what your doing. what im doing, is i use regions, with markdown like tags, to create a hierarchy of "sections" "headers 1-5" and "code blocks". then i run a recursive state machine wrapped into a tool i built that simply parses through the code file, looks for `#region` starts, then the tag after them (`$`, `#`, `##`, `###`, `...`, etc...) that identifies their "type". then reformats the region start, and end to a standard case usage, and adds or updates a comment ascii font header before them. "types" higher in the hierarchy, use larger, bolder ascii headers. and as you get lower in the hierarchy the ascii font gets smaller and thinner. this ends up creating code thats a nested, collapsible hierarchy. with the ascii font headers, acting as distinct visual identifiers/anchors that makes it much easier to keep things organized, find your class, method/function, block of code, etc...
since.. it sounds like your unicode dividers are performing a similar function for you, i thought that i'd mention my approach, because im not sure if in your approach, your sizing your dividers visually like im am doing. and maybe that idea would help you further keep things organized and decrease the "chaos" you experience when things are not organized.
Thanks for this!! It was actually really good to hear.
CVEC sounds like a really really cool idea thats a great thing to do. Good job! But yea, it seems to be hard to find true communities. Although, I've only recently started publicizing and looking towards my future so i know there is much more good to come.
Hi!! I'm jaysyrk, a 16 year old software dev. I have ADHD and bipolar 2. Because of how my brain runs, I code during intense hypomanic episodes where I'll just sit there and code for days on end. And because of the ADHD, my code has to be VERY organized with custom unicode dividers, em dashes, all that. I have them hardcoded into my keyboard Numpad.. If it isn't a perfect visual grid, my brain loses the thread and I can't survive as a dev.
Recently, I decided it was time to look toward my future, so I dumped multiple projects I've been working on since COVID onto Github, the main one being a custom logic engine and domain-specific language called Teleos DSL — by jaysyrk.
I posted it to a programming language community on Reddit, excited to finally show people what I built.
Instead, I got permanently banned and muted.
The mods told me that using Unicode dividers and writing 10,000 lines of incredibly clean code meant I was lying and using an LLM. I literally offered to hop on a call and break down the internal parsing logic line by line from memory. They didn't care. They just muted me so I couldn't even reply.
It sucked. BUT.. i have learned from this, i have created a background task in go that record my progress in my projects folder every 15 minutes so that if i accidentally don't upload to Github till the very end then I WILL STILL HAVE THE TIMLINE!!
Every 15 minutes, it checks if I’ve changed anything. If I have, it takes the 'git diff --stat' (which shows exactly how many lines I typed or deleted) and logs it.
But anyone can fake a regular text log. Sooooo... I used a hash chain. Every time it logs a new entry, it generates a SHA-256 hash by mixing the timestamp, the code changes, and the hash of the previous log entry.
It looks like this:
```text
┌─── TRACKER AUDIT: 2026-05-22 16:45:00 ─── │ Prev-Hash: 4a8b9c2d │ Curr-Hash: f3e2d1c0 ├─── CHANGES DETECTED ─── main.go | 42 ++++++++++++++------------ 1 file changed, 22 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-) └──────────────────────────────────────────────── ``` Because every single 15-minute block is mathematically tied to the one before it, you cannot fake the timeline. If you try to go back and alter a single line or a timestamp from two days ago, the whole chain breaks. It’s literal, un—fakable proof of work done by ME AND ME ONLY!
We’re in a weird time in tech where if you write messy, chaotic code, you're a human, but if you maintain absolute crisp and clean architecture, people think you're a bot.
I’m keeping my Unicode lines and em dashes. I’m keeping my clean formatting. If the internet communities we have right now are too cynical to believe a teenager can write clean systems code, don't waste your energy begging them for an appeal. I just want to find a spot where I can get actual feedback and not get shut down for having code that's "too good to be true for a 16 year old".
first i want to say, im sorry for the experience you had in that community. that sucks. i myself have some things i want to share, and kind dont, because in the past the few times i have has been either the work get stolen, or tons of people dont bother reading the work and then instead try to simply attack the post because thats all they know how to do. im also new to this place, because i've heard it might be a little different here, and there might be more "peers" that measure the work itself for its effectiveness or not. but atm i'm in the "watch and lurk" phase to see what is actually like here before i share too much. so i hope for you, that you do find a community where you can share your work, and find peers to discuss it for its own merits.
be proud of what you make, and your willingness to dedicate such effort to things. and your unique mind. your young, but imo, that shouldn't be a factor in analyzing your work. work product is work product.
as far as your efforts to prove it. thats cool you did that. but also, i wouldn't care as much about whither other people, especially reddit, believe your code is yours or not. remember most people on reddit are trolling. their not there to have a productive convo. and likely not there to actually check out someones work. and likely if you posted your proofs, those same folks would likely not even look at it. these typically aren't people that look to discover what the facts are, so they can derive the truth from facts. instead they decide what they want the truth to be, and then look for evidence that supports that truth, and ignore anything else.
well. not all of course, but many many exist like that in communities like reddit.
---
some of what you say here resonates with me.
im not adhd or biopolar or anything, but the part about intense episodes where you code on end? thats me too in a way, just.. not episodes.. its all i do. i've kinda always described it as an addition. and i think it is. so i wonder if for you its also an addiction. like people like you or i, have trained our brains to release dopamine when solving problems, discovering knowledge, completing tasks, creating things. so seeking out that "perpetual flow state" becomes our pen-ultimate satisfaction of our addiction.
maybe my experience isn't the same for you, but figured i'd share that incase it resonates with you and possibly helps you understand your mind from another lens.
---
as far as what you mention about organizing your code, and your NEED to do so, i get that too. and do something similar. so figured i would mention that as well, since it sounds like in that regards we are also of a similar mindset. maybe if i share how i handle that "need for organization" it would help you as well.
so what i do. is i created my own "styling framework" as i guess many would call it. i work in c# lately, so the standard/tools i built to automate this for me are in that language. i call mine "CVEC" or "Cognitive Visual Ergonomic Coding". the core concept, is that our brains have "systems 1" and "systems 2" thinking/processing, and that we can leverage that. the mechanism i use sounds similar to what your doing. what im doing, is i use regions, with markdown like tags, to create a hierarchy of "sections" "headers 1-5" and "code blocks". then i run a recursive state machine wrapped into a tool i built that simply parses through the code file, looks for `#region` starts, then the tag after them (`$`, `#`, `##`, `###`, `...`, etc...) that identifies their "type". then reformats the region start, and end to a standard case usage, and adds or updates a comment ascii font header before them. "types" higher in the hierarchy, use larger, bolder ascii headers. and as you get lower in the hierarchy the ascii font gets smaller and thinner. this ends up creating code thats a nested, collapsible hierarchy. with the ascii font headers, acting as distinct visual identifiers/anchors that makes it much easier to keep things organized, find your class, method/function, block of code, etc...
since.. it sounds like your unicode dividers are performing a similar function for you, i thought that i'd mention my approach, because im not sure if in your approach, your sizing your dividers visually like im am doing. and maybe that idea would help you further keep things organized and decrease the "chaos" you experience when things are not organized.
Thanks for this!! It was actually really good to hear.
CVEC sounds like a really really cool idea thats a great thing to do. Good job! But yea, it seems to be hard to find true communities. Although, I've only recently started publicizing and looking towards my future so i know there is much more good to come.