We are all code newbies

Well here I am. I used my coding skills to build DEV and Forem and really accomplish a lot!

I still feel totally lost often, and have completely failed at learning certain skills I thought I needed... In fact, I've failed at learning most programming concepts I've tried to learn. A few core things have stuck with me that have allowed me to succeed in my domain, and the rest did not wind up being necessary.

What changed with time was the realization that I only needed to truly learn so much, and the rest is stuff I could suffer my way through. It helps to understand that there is not, in fact, some unknown unknown that will pop up and crush your career. If that existed, it would have hit me by now.

The toughest phase for me was the period after I learned enough to realize how very little I knew. Before then I was coasting on a bit of ignorance. That period lasted years, the majority of my career, frankly.

I am the humorist behind the ORLY parody programming books you may have seen floating around. This period in my coding journey helped me address my own insecurities and break through a wall as a developer. So much so, in fact, that I was having too good a time writing code to drum up the nervous energy to make more of those covers. I made dozens and dozens before I moved on, though.

I am still a newbie trying to fumble my way through this incredibly complex work. In fact, the last message I sent to a colleague started like this:

I don't fully understand how ******** in ****** work, but if we needed to.....

"I don't fully understand" is probably an understatement. I'm fairly clueless about this part of the code. (I blanked it out because I don't feel like trying to get into it 😄)... I know enough about some other stuff that if I get this question answered, I'll be able to finish some other work.

Welcome to the CodeNewbie Community. You'll have a place here forever. 💚