MY CODING JOURNEY

MY CODING JOURNEY

Dec 22, 2021

No matter how good you get at web development, the only thing which slows you down is your ability to learn and solve problems. If a professional web developer ever tells me that he/she has never been frustrated I won’t believe him/her. This seems to become more true as you get better at it. Frustration is totally normal you have to accept it. The normal experience of programming/web development is to try to solve something, get frustrated, try harder, step back, have an epiphany, and eventually get your code to work.

You have to accept it. Easier written than done, right? The sense of frustration will make solving the problem much more satisfying. Try to remember first that you are doing things that not everyone is capable of. You need to get comfortable working through that frustrating feeling. Don’t necessarily see failure as a bad thing. No matter how frustrating your problems are, there is almost certainly a solution out there. It’s just an opportunity to do better next time.

As you get better at web development and programming, you’ll get better and more confident at getting unstuck yourself. You can view frustration as a sign that you’re getting outside of your comfort zone. When we were kids, we were bad at everything but we didn’t notice. If you want to learn stuff, you’ll encounter problems and most probably get stuck at some point. But you’ll get over it in the end. It will make you stronger and wiser. As adults, we have very few opportunities to be bad at something.

The process of learning things takes time. Moreover, programmers and web developers should never stop learning, so don’t burn yourself out trying to assimilate everything in one shot just to be finished with it. Programming and web development are basically magic. Think about it - we study hard and pore over our books of lore (the computer + internet), to make spells (programs and applications). Finally, frustration just doesn’t help. At all. On the contrary, it prevents you from correctly organizing your ideas and thinking clearly.

Wizards can teach other wizards how to cast their magic. We can make things happen in the world spontaneously, and create wondrous devices anyone can use. (Like the internet and mobile phones). These devices can do things that would be impossible without our skills. The most classic advice for dealing with frustration is to do something else. It doesn’t mean you’re avoiding the problem. You’ll have to come back to it eventually. The goal is to give it a break. Focus on something else while you mull it over in the back of your mind.

The best way to get better at it is to write lots of code. Just keep making stuff. Dealing with frustration is hard since it puts you in a poor state of mind to get any quality work done. The best advice is to avoid reaching the point where frustration affects your ability to think clearly. There is no “best coding language”. Some languages and tools are better at solving some problems than others. Just keep coding. With patience, success is inevitable.



Stewart ilondanga


Enjoy this post?

Buy stewilondanga a coffee

More from stewilondanga