Hello everyone,
I’m currently a 19-year old college junior in northern New Jersey whom some people consider to be a programmer. Except I’m nowhere near being able to call myself a programmer. I’m self-taught and I’ve been writing code for many years, but I feel like I know nothing.
I had this realization when I started with web application development 2ish years ago. Beforehand, I worked on developing software, which pretty much only involves writing code. Writing code is what I’m good at, and it was extremely enjoyable. I’d spend entire days programming, and I was (or at least I thought I was) a happy man.
Since then, my interests shifted to web application development, and I was no longer a happy man. Ever since I made the transition, my interest in programming has taken a sharp turn, and began to decline gradually. I always feel like I know nothing and should quit, and this sentiment really discourages me from going any further. I started working on a web application 2 years ago, with an idea that I really liked, but while developing it, I kept learning about things that I didn’t know about before (i.e. API’s, specific HTTP headers, caching, security, etc.) and had to completely start from scratch so many times to the point where I just got rid of everything altogether. This is the problem with web application development - there’s so much more to it than just writing code and clicking “Debug.” You need to know the fundamentals of web applications, which I don’t, and have no clue where I can learn (and I’m not learning anything useful in college relating to that).
And this isn’t just web applications; I found that I don’t know much of the inner-workings of programming languages and other fundamental concepts. For example, if you start talking about the stack and the heap, you would probably lose me very quickly.
This past month I’ve been on vacation and I haven’t done any programming. I tried reading books but they all teach how to write code rather than become a programmer. They don’t have anything about all the “fundamentals.” I’ve been very depressed and stressed out, and I’m even more stressed out thinking that I have 2 more months of vacation and I will continue not learning anything. Better yet, I have 2 more years until I graduate, and I really want to work on my own projects while I can.
This depression I’m feeling from a lack of knowledge/expertise in the one thing I had passion for is really holding me back. I have no willpower to do anything nowadays, and I always lament how all this time I’ve only been a good Googler rather than a good programmer. In fact, I am not a programmer at all. I really hope someone can help me out to become a “real programmer.” I think it will make me feel a little better about myself, and it will definitely get me up on my feet again.
I’d like to thank you in advance for reading all of this; I really appreciate it. I came to this forum because I assume you guys are depressed as I am, perhaps for similar reasons. Though I’m sure that since many of you are professional programmers, maybe you can help me in my case out. Anything is useful: tips, encouragement, books, etc.
-collegedev