> "I was freaking out when I couldn't solve some Project > Euler questions, and pretty much lost all of confidence in > my programming abilities for a while. I

> "I was freaking out when I couldn't solve some Project > Euler questions, and pretty much lost all of confidence in > my programming abilities for a while. I've read way too many people online suggest Project Euler as a way to "teach yourself programming". This is almost a sadistic suggestion. Project Euler is way too hard to teach yourself programming. Evidence: nearly 180,000 people have solved problem #1. Only 76,000 have solved problem #10. Losing 60% of your audience by problem #10 is pretty bad question design for learning. Anecdote: I've been programming for over 25 years. I was near the top of my class in a top-10 computer science university program. And I've solved 30 Project Euler problems in the last 3-1/2 years. But I still can't solve problem # 18. I've worked on it off and on since December 2007. Only recently, quite by accident I learned that it is probably a "dynamic programming" question, which is something I've never done before. Never lose confidence in your coding ability because Project Euler stumps you now and again.