Have been feeling very frustrated this past week working on something. Started wondering if I am dumb or is this actually hard. Decided to write a simple quick blog post on it -
I've come to feel that while I love reading HN, it's quite toxic as well. It's like the instagram of coding - every person is so smart, so authoritative, such breadth and depth of knowledge they are all making $300k/yr+ and profess how easy it is to find such a job. It can be really demoralising and even depressing for people who are struggling to be exposed to such potent concentration of things like that.
So it's great to hear someone being vulnerable and owning up to struggles.
I would say, my approach when I hit the types of feelings you express is always to drop down a layer to fundamentals. If X is hard, why is that? It probably means your knowledge isn't sound at some layer below the one you are working at. It sounds like a huge amount of your learning approach has been based on online learning and the issue with these is that they are usually very shallow. They teach you a direct skill but nothing underneath it. So drop down a level and just take time, to properly fill in those gaps. Steadily unravel what is going on one level down. Don't keep battering at the level above constantly getting frustrated. Build your knowledge at the level below. Learn the joy of patiently establishing a sound basis and a complete knowledge of the underlying principles on which something works.
The hardest part is the big gap between "I can write a function that does X" and "I can write non-trivial software that does Y".
That's where you're hitting walls - because there are a ton of them, and it is demoralising to try something that "should" be simple but end up spending numerous days and weeks fighting problems you didn't even realise existed.
Even experienced programmers have this issue. It's why a lot of us seem to think estimation is basically impossible. IMO it certainly is possible to estimate fairly accurately, but it requires a very good understanding of the problem, the technology, and the people involved.
First try to limit your problem space, only one or two new things to learn at a time. Use only mainstream ("boring") technology. Then spend a few hours every day banging your head against those problems. (Every day, not every weekend. A few hours, not 12 hours.) If you can, set goals you can achieve every week or two to keep morale up - small projects, proofs-of-concept, etc.
(I've been doing this for 20+ years, and if I'm working on stuff I'm comfortable with I'm pretty good. If I compare myself to people like John Carmack or Fabrice Bellard I discover am comparatively very very dumb indeed.)
You are not dumb. It is normal to feel frustrated, when figuring out, step by step, how something works, and what to do. It is like labyrinth. Having enough breaks, taking a walk when needed, having enough coping skills or adding more of them, having patience to keep notes of what is current position in that labyrinth. If some way does not work, try some other way. Getting something working is victory feeling.
It is always about the basics. Many programming languages change syntax often. Some dependencies change.
For example, when writing some for database export:
1) There was no working code examples at documentation
2) Google etc searches had old info, did not work
3) I did not find from source code how it did work
4) ChatGPT, Bing AI etc examples did not work
5) So I tried with trial and error, what is correct syntax, character by character
For some error messages, sometimes Google search shows somebody having same problem, or even a fix. But if not, it's about reading source code of the software.
But this works only when code is available, like in Open Source.
If something is binary executeable, then there is need to decompile, read assembler, deobfuscate, etc. That means even more time required, I have not gone there yet. That is why I use and develop FOSS, when it is possible to more easily fix something, when it is broken.
Yo OP cool you commented here! At the very least I think your website is pretty good - and I like the prism logo. Being able to write up a post and have it get international eyes (via HN) is more than many people ever try to accomplish.
I often think of coding like making music: you don't need to be an expert at an instrument to make nice music - so much to the point where "making music" and "playing an instrument" can be considered very different things.
Frustration is something I can feel as well when I am stuck. It is not a productive emotional state. It means to feel stuck, and maybe I was even stuck before I began.
Sometimes I just need to take a step back and look at it the next day. Sometimes it helps, sometimes not. Sometimes taking a walk helps, or cycling, or taking a shower.
But when I feel frustrated, I know it's an uphill battle that will be mostly unproductive, mostly productive in getting a look at it, some reconnaisance.
I've come to feel that while I love reading HN, it's quite toxic as well. It's like the instagram of coding - every person is so smart, so authoritative, such breadth and depth of knowledge they are all making $300k/yr+ and profess how easy it is to find such a job. It can be really demoralising and even depressing for people who are struggling to be exposed to such potent concentration of things like that.
So it's great to hear someone being vulnerable and owning up to struggles.
I would say, my approach when I hit the types of feelings you express is always to drop down a layer to fundamentals. If X is hard, why is that? It probably means your knowledge isn't sound at some layer below the one you are working at. It sounds like a huge amount of your learning approach has been based on online learning and the issue with these is that they are usually very shallow. They teach you a direct skill but nothing underneath it. So drop down a level and just take time, to properly fill in those gaps. Steadily unravel what is going on one level down. Don't keep battering at the level above constantly getting frustrated. Build your knowledge at the level below. Learn the joy of patiently establishing a sound basis and a complete knowledge of the underlying principles on which something works.