I think this skill is what kept me going through the frustrating patches after I decided that I wanted to be a programmer. I started programming later than many

I think this skill is what kept me going through the frustrating patches after I decided that I wanted to be a programmer. I started programming later than many here (after I had obtained a degree in an unrelated field), but I'd always enjoyed breaking and fixing computers and software as a kid and so I'd picked up "computing", as you put it, as a hobby. That sort of hobby teaches you to keep ramming your head against the wall until the bricks start to crumble, which is helpful when you're trying to learn a language but the package you want fails to install on Ubuntu, or your program won't run despite you having checked the syntax a thousand times, or a concept doesn't click until you've re-read it every day for a week. You learn to see computers and software as a mess that you will necessarily have to untangle and rearrange for things to work properly, instead of thinking of things that don't yet work as "broken". And you learn to Google until your eyes start to melt.