You are right that in order for this to work the beginner needs a high level of confidence because HN and SO can be very hostile places. I still believe that be

You are right that in order for this to work the beginner needs a high level of confidence because HN and SO can be very hostile places. I still believe that being exposed to things earlier rather than later is usually beneficial. You might not understand them at the beginning, but later on you will. If a good article is posted on HN, you might not understand all of it, but you might understand 1/10 of it and it might be useful later on. Also, once you know EVERYONE gets hated on when posting a question in SO (even very experienced programmers), you can probably handle someone hating on your stupid question.