No, you're not stupid!

Feels great to see people like you. Bringing positive energy to everyone, especially for the beginners like me. Much appreciated!

Personally I found it helpful in the early stages of learning to program to learn a bit about the process of learning.

When we learn a new skill, we're actually growing new connections in the brain, and that can't be rushed. It's only once those connections have grown that it starts to become second nature. For that reason, doing little and often is a better way to learn than a smaller number of sessions.

I think it's important to cultivate your own mentor for this specific purpose. This inner mentor is gentle, patient and kind enough forgive anything. This is something that has to be done actively because we get the opposite for free.

I'm not sure if I would have come to this conclusion if not for the unrelated practice of mindfulness and performing validation on my thoughts. Treating yourself like bunk is not okay beyond the span of maybe two minutes. Minutes, hours or days, one still has to pick themselves up and retry.

I've been coding for 20 years now. I get rejected by 22 year old full-stack developers (in interviews) because I don't have enough experience with React (only 2 years!).

I don't feel stupid but I feel we have a problem with those who make decisions nowadays. Because the situation is indeed stupid. Maybe we should be writing to them instead.

I've gone to reply to your comment about 10 times, but couldn't quite find a diplomatic way of saying you're full of shit. So here comes the non-diplomatic response.

I truly hope you are not a mentor.

Most developers are mediocre and they will be forever, they don't love to program, they don't put passion on it and they only want a salary, and they are not good at it.

This sort of attitude is disgusting. Anybody can make it as a programmer, with the right dedication and mentorship.

Telling people they don't have it in them, or will never be more than mediocre, is probably why they lose the passion.

Maybe you should try nurturing them and helping them become a better developer.

Very reassuring. Thanks!

Wanted to add that people who think they're ninja rock star wizards sometimes aren't really what they say. For example, one of my leads told me I shouldn't get any onboarding instructions because "everyone has to suffer". He would belittle me in code reviews then do a force push to the master branch. 😒

After 2 months, I'll be a student of computer and systems engineering. I was so hesitated whether to make this decision or not because alot of wow students, whom I knew before, are going to join the department. Now, I believe it's not about who started first, but it's about who reaches first.
Thanks for these great words.You encouraged me!

That feeling of 'I'm an idiot' is your brain expanding as it learns something new. Same principle as your muscles hurting as they get stronger when you exercise. Anything worth doing comes with pain and discomfort. Personally I hope to never forget this feeling :-)

I agree. It's incredibly frustrating in the beginning when others minimize the skills necessary to make code work.

In addition to when you're starting out, it's very much so learning a vocabulary that has a bunch of action tied to particular words.

For me, I could understand the types of loops without much diffucilty when starting out, but learning how I was specifically supposed to write out that code took a lot longer to be able to do without referencing prior examples.

Keep on providing a welcoming environment to others!

Learning something new can be exciting - but it takes time, so give yourself time. Think back to something you know now that you had to learn. Now you can teach someone what you had to learn. You are so right about finding someone who can help you and answer your questions - that person was probably in your same shoes. Thanks for being positive.

Learning languages is super hard, I speak two, and really took me forever to learn english. My english really came through immersion. Is important for beginners to differentiate learning a language syntax, and learning how to write code are two different topics.

Conversely if you mix both at the beginning stages it can get overwhelming. So my suggestion is to learn the syntax first, then find a good project you want to do a little bit later. You can certainly learn while doing a project at the same time but it gets more frustrating especially if is your first language ever.

Code through immersion also is a good idea, read code on github of stuff you like and use. Submit a patch, etc. Just keep going, takes break when necessary but anyone can do it!

Thanks a lot for those words. When I started studying CS I felt like I entered a whole new world. Before that, I only had basic computer skills but I never had anything to do with code. And I've come a long way from that. I had a little help from a friend making my way to a nice coding job. And this very guy helped me a lot gaining the skills I needed for the job and for CS itself. Anyway I know how much it means to have someone by your side that watches over your shoulder, because in the beginning of this all, I wanted to give up a lot of times. So having someone as a mentor that believes in you and that you can call your friend is priceless. I'm glad I see people like you that keep motivating people, even if they don't do well in the beginning. Give them time to gain knowledge and there might be rising a powerful programmer from that. You sir, understood:)

Wow, people need to see more of posts like this, thanks man.
It is encouraging, I am a self-taught dev, and a friend of mine believed in me that I can learn something and introduced me to coding and pushed towards coding, while my other friends laughed at when I told them.
For now, I am actively looking for a job and not giving up and they still doubt that I will make it.
It's an additional motivation to push through make a career and tell them how wrong they were :D

Feels great. This is the motivation a beginner needs!! !