[dswilkerson]

FIVE YEARS and you still cannot code? Your whole approach must be wrong. I taught myself to code when I was 10 - 12 years old. When I started I had to use the display machine at the local Sears and I did not even have anywhere to save my work, so I had to start over every time.

WRITE A PROGRAM, write tests, write some base documentation, check it in to github as you go. I recommend starting with the C programming language as it will not lie to you about how the machine actually works. Be sure to automate all standard tasks such as building and testing using, say GNU Make.

Pick a program you actually want to have, such as a program to call some public HTTP API and print the results for you. For example, try writing a C program to take a search string and send it to a search engine and then show you the results.

Show the results to a real programmer and ask them to critique it. Fix everything they complain about, no matter how "small". Repeat.

[nikonyrh]

I understand why C gets recommended so much, but without a good tutor or a class, it can be very tough to get started with since you must take care of everything. This is in contrast to say, languages like Python, Javascript, Typescript, Java etc.