It's been a few days since I've posted anything, I know. I was meaning to make a post a couple days ago, but I got distracted with work and other things. But, I wanted to mention something kind of cool that I recently discovered.
But, before I do that, I want to give a shout out to my friend Molly Schulstad from Madison, WI. What up Molly! Molly truly is a genuine, kindhearted, inquisitive (hehe) person and is going to make an exceptional nurse pretty soon. See you at work Molly :)
So the thing I wanted to mention is how I recently discovered that programming doesn't have to be as lonely as it often is, especially for those of us who are self-taught. As a side note, as cool as it is to say that you're a self-taught developer, I would argue that you're self-motivated, not exclusively self-taught. Why? Because you are learning from the same resources that schooled programmers are learning from, produced by the same people. The difference is that you don't have someone standing over your shoulder checking in with you. The reason I even bring that up is because I think when someone hears about someone that is self-taught, they become impressed like the person being described is some genius inventor like Thomas Edison. Sure, be impressed by his or her self-drive and dedication, but let's realize that the self-taught do seek out and receive help from professionals in the field via forums, for example. In fact, that brings me to my original point, which is learning programming and the challenge of building real things is much less painful and lonely if one knows how to seek help. One of the most prominent resources for frustrated programmers is a site called stackoverflow.com. I recently used this site to get help troubleshooting the application that I was building. After trying to figure out the issue for over seven hours through online research and manual testing, I decided to resort to using stackoverflow. Within ten minutes of posting my issue on stackoverflow, I received quality responses from three different programmers (check it out). And whatta ya know, I didn't have to read through all three because the solution posted by the first responder worked perfectly. Amazing. I can't express the sense of relief and gratitude I felt when the issue I had been working on for over seven hours was finally resolved in just minutes Perhaps the best way for you to know how I felt would be to do it yourself. I wouldn't recommend trying to get stuck for seven hours, but if you want to learn programming, then you surely have a lot of fun to look forward to if you know what I mean. Now, I know what you're thinking... "Julian, you're an idiot. You waited seven hours to ask for help when your issue could have been fixed in under ten minutes?" Well, well, well. Hold on now, gimme a chance to explain myself. I didn't resort to posting my issue online right away because I don't think that's what a good problem-solver does. I think it's important to troubleshoot everything on my own to my best ability with my current knowledge and see if I can't just fix it myself. If I do fix it myself, then it's a win and a confidence boost. If I don't fix it myself and I seek out help, I still learned a lot in those seven hours of troubleshooting it, no matter how painful they were. I heard a quote by Thomas Edison one time that said something about how it took him over a thousand or ten thousand different approaches before he successfully invented the light bulb (Now, if you're thinking, "Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb, moron," then I'd say that argument is irrelevant here). And Edison mentioned that in all those failed attempts, he didn't learn nothing; rather, he learned thousands of different ways of how not to invent a light bulb. Maybe sounds dumb on the surface, but I can sort of relate to what he's saying, because what he's really getting to is that when you fail at something several times, you learn about different parts of the system and what makes certain things tick. In other words, you learn a lot of important underlying things that you otherwise never would if you just got it right on your first attempt. Another reason I didn't want to just go straight to stackoverflow without trying to figure it out myself is because that is frowned upon. I mean how can I expect to carry myself as a professional if I outsource my thinking to other generous, hard-working people. That doesn't seem like a good thing to do. Furthermore, according to the guidelines on stackoverflow (this is not verbatim), questions posted should show thorough research effort. I mean, think about it. Would you want to sit there and answer questions that could've easily been figured out by doing a quick google search? And do you really think the programming community wants the stackoverflow space cluttered with such questions? I don't think so. Anyway, that's why I chose to spend seven hours working on the problem before I resorted to seeking help. To continue on with the particular situation, though, I found it very warming when one responder to my question, a fine gentleman named Santiago, commented that he was so glad to find someone else also using the same technologies as he. He also wished me luck with my project and told me he looked forward to reading about my experiences. That was a very good feeling that he took a personal interest in me, which is what inspired me to blog about this. Thanks again Santiago! I quickly thanked him, checked out his website and even followed him on twitter.
In short, stackoverflow is an indispensable resource if you're an aspiring programmer. Make sure to make good and honest use of it. And don't forget to contribute to the community as well by helping others resolve their issues too.
Alright, peoples, I am going to go be productive.
Have an amazing day!
P.S. Feel free to leave any comments or questions :)
