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I'm looking forward to the day when we can get over our collective need to shore up our personal confidence. Reading through these comments might leave someone
by mevile 9y ago
I'm looking forward to the day when we can get over our collective need to shore up our personal confidence. Reading through these comments might leave someone thinking that everyone is a good programmer, that just by wanting to learn code you're entitled to receive a participation trophy. We don't really need to handhold people.
Did you get a computer science degree? Did you land a job at a good company to write code after an extensive interview? Have you been able to keep that job for a few years? Have you written code other people find valuable? Do other engineers you respect commend you on your contributions?
If you've answered yes to all of the above or at least some then congratulations you're a good enough programmer. If not then there's room to grow and you can become one. Either way I laud you in your choice of career. It's a good one, and there's no reason to be handwringing about where you fit in the spectrum of engineering skills.
Just always be learning.
- ydidntithnkftht 9y agoThat is very well said.
- mrisoli 9y agoI don't think it is that simple, good enough doesn't mean good. It's easy to fool yourself if you're just getting by work day to day thinking everything is going well until one day it isn't. Validation might be vanity but feedback is important. Trying to figure if you are a good programmer is the first step to actually being good, willingness to continuously learn and self-improvement is a key trait of good programmers IMO.
- mercer 9y agoIt's not just about confidence though. Yes, for some people, the question of whether they're a good enough programmer might stem from (social) insecurity, and I think what you're saying might be a very good answer for them. But others, including myself, ask the question because we want to, as you say, 'always be learning'. We might be insecure, for example, about getting stuck at some equilibrium that isn't optimal, and just fishing for where to go next. For example, it was through similarly-themed threads on HN that I learned about functional programming. I learned how important immutability might be, and to try and keep my functions and methods pure, even if I'm not going all in on the functional stuff. Hell, even just thinking in terms of separating data from code was a revelation that I might have missed without HN functional weenies constantly submitting articles that boiled down to that as a point. Anyways, not disagreeing with you necessarily, just nuancing.