Because in a new domain, you don't know which pieces to tug at to lead to success and which not to. When you try something and fail, you don't retrospectively i

Because in a new domain, you don't know which pieces to tug at to lead to success and which not to. When you try something and fail, you don't retrospectively identify which parts of your attempt led to that failure. So instead of a clear nuanced picture like "do X.1 never X.2...sometimes X.3 simultaneously with X.4", you've just trained yourself to predict "If I do X, I'll likely fail." You need something to point out which bits of X to pay attention to. Thats why teachers are valuable -- the indicate where to pay attention. --------- Consider going onto http://codementor.io/ http://codementor.io/ and hiring someone to pair-program with you for a while. If you were at the office and spent 4 hours getting nowhere with a problem, you'd ask a colleague for help.