It All Takes Time

Hi,

I’m Dibri and I am trying my best.

During my journey as a budding programmer, one of the major lessons I have learnt is to appreciate the rewards of failures that come with the job.

I don’t mean to look forward to failing but to just be open to the idea that it can happen and be willing to learn from it, be it issues from working with a team or just regular errors in your code it can happen and you have to be prepared to handle it with grace. Arianna Huffington says, “… understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.”

I don’t know why I thought/expected the entire journey to be a breeze, maybe it’s because of the meta influential programmers on Youtube and Twitter or Bill Gates’ video saying programming is easy but it has been everything but that. For the record, continually running into errors while coding, especially as a semi self-taught developer can be really demoralizing and it will even have you second-guessing yourself (which is normal, apparently) but here are a couple of things I have learnt that have helped me to keep on track.

The first thing I learnt was to be comfortable with taking breaks from certain projects, sitting behind a computer screen for hours on end working on the same problem can skew your thinking. Spending some time away from the screen can help clear your mind or even give you new ideas. Tasks as simple as taking a walk or playing a quick game of 2k will give you a chance to ease your mind and maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll have an epiphany and miraculously discover answers to problems you may have had.

The second thing I have learnt is to not take days off from practicing programming. Even if it means spending just an hour every day working on code till you’re more comfortable with spending more time, do it. As they say, practice makes perfect. Taking baby steps is essential to learning anything at all. For the rare moments when you may feel uninterested or lazy, here are some routes I suggest you should take:

+ count to five and just get up and do it. 1, 2, 3, 4….5 and just start coding.

+ for a lot of people the first step will not work so you can try this, find a handful of sources of inspiration within the tech space, consume their content, allow it to motivate you and then you should feel inspired to do work. Studies have shown that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at anything. So the more you work at it, the better you will become.

I have also learnt to be open about my problems, to share them with people who can help, on Twitter, the YouTube comment section, anywhere. That may also mean sharing your challenges with instructors during office hours or even just with your friends who share similar interests as yourself. A lot of coding and working in tech is about problem-solving, collaboration and creativity. Having resources or people to reach out to will always make your work better. Fresh eyes can work wonders and show you things you haven’t seen or even motivate you to do more if there is nothing to fix or change.

Lastly, take it easy on yourself because just like anything else, perfection or at least familiarity takes time. Do not give up too quickly or let your fears crowd your reasoning, just do your best and everything else should fall into place.

Someone learning to appreciate failure,

דברי