The problem with the manic loner method of learning to code is that it can lead to burnout really quickly. I taught myself to code in a similar way. It was my s

The problem with the manic loner method of learning to code is that it can lead to burnout really quickly. I taught myself to code in a similar way. It was my senior year in college, I was getting a degree in creative writing, and my only programming knowledge was whatever was still rattling around my head from an introductory course in high school. I had an idea for something that I wanted to build, so I bought an HTML for Dummies book and started working my way down the stack. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, jQuery, cron, VPS hosting, web APIs, and on and on. After three months of manic reading and coding, I had a working product and enough programming knowledge to get a job with a local startup. I was also a wreck. It got to the point where opening up a text editor made me nauseous. The main reason I applied for the job at the startup was to work with other coders, to alleviate my stress and isolation, but it was a marketing startup at its core, and all the other developers worked remotely. The people I worked with were great, and they had nothing but good things to say about my work, but I was the only on-site developer. It made me feel even more isolated. Honestly, I felt like a fraud. I spent most of my time at work teaching myself new tools. I felt like these were things that I should just know, and I couldn't convince myself that I was doing a good job, because there was no developer community around me. In retrospect, I know that my stress was irrational. Textbook impostor syndrome. Every time I fixed a bug for a customer, which I did a few times every day, I was protecting a revenue stream worth several times my hourly wage. But because the community wasn't there, and because I had burnt myself out over months of manic self-education, I couldn't internalize this at the time. I brought up my issues with the CEO - who was in the room next to me, since it was a small shop - but no matter how many times he assured me that I was doing a great job, it didn't cut through the burnout and the stress. When I graduated, I left the job behind. I also left coding behind, for about eight months. I made a few static HTML/CSS pages for various projects, but that was it. I'm back to coding again now. Everything is fresh and fun again. I'm working on an ambitious project, and I'm still a team of one. But I'm going to start visiting meetups and getting involved in the community, because I've felt the stress of being completely on my own. Your mental makeup may be different. You may be able to continue learning and coding on your own indefinitely and never succumb to burnout, paranoia, panic, or isolation. If so, that's great! I'm a little worried about your note at the end, though. Most people can't do this on their own, and it's not a knock on their aptitude. The emotional toll of isolation is what brings people down, and it's perfectly normal.