I am Non CS graduate and a self taught programmer but I feel I can never get over the beginner tag. Sometimes I see code written by people on github and I feel so stupid on knowing just the basics. My job is not programming though I was hired as a developer. I have applied to hundreds of jobs but no one replies. I feel inadequate and depressed , even kids can code better than me.
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Right there with you, brother. I have an MIS degree; sort of a poor man’s CS degree as far as programming is concerned. Programming is hard. People know that and many companies won’t risk investing in training. My advice would be to stay the course, persevere, keep doing what you’re doing. Keep looking at good code. Use your resources. Stackoverflow may as well by my homepage. Again, people know how hard it is though they may act like its not. No one immediately understands everything. I’m trying to take my own advice here as a novice programmer myself. Shit’s tough but, at the end of the day, programming is just logic; a puzzle. Understand the task, all the pieces, and put it together. Much easier said than done, of course, but stay the course and you’ll get to where you want to go. Good luck. We’re all here to help.
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Are there particular technologies you like working in? Have you considered enrolling in some courses for those technologies? I found it easier to go deeper into Web technologies (for example) by enrolling in some online courses about them rather than trying to Google it all on my own. This also helped to keep me less anxious and depressed (at the time).
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Thanks. I will try my best.
I have tried the online courses and it seems easy until you start on your own. Maybe I am a little dumb 
Oh definitely. Starting my own project from scratch is one of the hardest things to do and I fail often. What I’ve been doing now is rotating projects and focus of studies in order to keep my motivation up. It’s working okay so far.
I know the feeling. I think every developer feels that way at certain points. I forgot where I read this quote but it was when the brain doesn’t understand or just not getting a concept, you’re actually increasing brain functionality and building new patterns in the brain. So your actually getting smarter even if you don’t understand or not getting a concept.
The development field is an emotional roller coaster. One day you feel smart, the next day you feel dumb and unproductive. It’s normal. Even experienced developers goes through it all the time. It’s a never ending cycle.
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Contrary to the rest of the advice here, I would say that you should not start with a project. If you don’t have a CS degree, or have a CS degree but feel like you don’t know a lot, I would recommend you start with a good textbooks. There are lots of textbooks out there that will teach about fundamentals like data structures and algorithms. Pick one and start working through it. Read all the material, do all the exercises, do them on pen and paper and implement some of them too. That way you’ll start learning all the things you missed and might even have some code to show at the end of the day.
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