There’s nothing romantic about learning to code, other than maybe the heartache…

This reality is dear to my heart. I struggled countless times with thinking the path to “coder” should’ve been easier and didn’t understand why it wasn’t. I felt like something was wrong with me, and it wasn’t me. It was this unrealistic idea that is pushed in the media and by some programmers about how “easy” and “fun” it is to code.

Truth is: Learning to code is difficult, and sometimes it’s boring and frustrating. You can go hours just trying to figure out what’s breaking your program… not even fixing it. Hours spent on literally just trying to find the bug. Sugarcoating this reality, sets some potential developers up for failure. I felt like a failure, and I know others who’ve had the same feeling. It’s hard learning something new without being told that “anyone” can do it. Sure, “anyone” can learn to code, but it takes a ton of perseverance and grit.

My determination to learn to code got me through, and still gets me through the ups and downs. No matter how experienced a programmer you are, you’re bound to find yourself back at the ‘newbie’ stage. It’s honestly one of the reasons why I love programming. There’s always room for growth and the prospect of learning something new. It’s thrilling, but not so much in the early stages.

Below are slides from my BrooklynJS talk where I spoke about this in more detail. Check out the speaker notes too, I added a few resources that have helped along my journey.