[delta_p_delta_x]

I am still a novice programmer, if you call a recent graduate that.

I feel stupid all the time. I don't know anything about almost everything, and the little I do know about, I'm sure it's less than what I think it is.

I don't know how a GAN works. I haven't the faintest clue about machine learning. Someone asked me 'hey, you have a CS degree, tell me how ChatGPT works.' I couldn't answer that.

I never took databases in university either. I am mediocre at algorithms—it takes me 45 minutes to an hour to solve a supposedly 'easy' problem on LeetCode.

I still use Windows and Visual Studio, because that's what I grew up on. I don't know how to use Vim besides hjkl and :wq!.

I don't know HTML and CSS. I've looked at the more popular blog posts in the recent Ask HN thread. Everyone discusses things I've never even thought about. They have custom blog engines they wrote from scratch, that actually work.

I know a tiny bit about computer graphics, but I have hardly written any shaders. I also know an equally inconsequential amount about parallel computing, and even so, I dislike any problem that cannot be easily and embarrassingly parallelised because I don't fully get synchronisation and acquire-release semantics.

I don't know if anything can boost my confidence at all. I have a tendency to ingratiate myself with people a lot smarter than me, and as a result the large majority of my friends from university are now working at HFTs earning five digits a month.

While I certainly have learnt much from all of them, they just makes me feel even more stupid—through no fault of their own, mark my words.

Not sure if this will ever go away, but I believe the feeling of stupidity will only ever increase as I realise just how much I don't know.

[liamN]

Honestly, youre doing great. At the very early point in your career that you are at, it is normal and expected that you dont know much. The important thing is that you just keep learning.

There will always be people that are smarter than you. Perhaps even better at your job than you are (currently) in every way. Dont let it get to you; there's nothing wrong with not being the very best. There's also the old saying that "comparison is the theif of joy" (idk who said it, but it has truth). The hardest part is accepting it's ok not to know something; you can always learn it if it interests you.

[jmfldn]

Honestly, what you're describing would be common to almost any software engineer I know at least. The entire world of computer science, programming and software is VAST. You're only going to know about a tiny bit of it. A physicist doesn't know all of physics in depth, a doctor only has a surface level understanding of most things, and deeper knowledge of a few. Our field is the same. You're going to get to know your little niche, and bits and pieces of others.

As for tooling, if Windows and Visual Studio work then great. Vim is just a tool.

[DANmode]

> Someone asked me 'hey, you have a CS degree, tell me how ChatGPT works.' I couldn't answer that.

Did you mention to them that they're a clown?