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What you see on HN/TechCrunch/whatever has a strong "success bias." What this means is that you only get to see/read success stories. But there are also many pe

by d_r 15y ago

What you see on HN/TechCrunch/whatever has a strong "success bias." What this means is that you only get to see/read success stories. But there are also many people just like yourself who are just starting out. Many have failures under their belts. Even the people who are successful today have failed in the past! It sounds like you're practicing too much "theory" and reading, instead of creating. This will make anyone feel bad. The people you admire did not get where they are by reading HN/books/etc. alone. They got there by doing things. As others have said, pick a side project and hack at it -- release it, fail, and try again, and again. The beautiful thing about the tech community is that failure is encouraged and embraced. By doing things over and over is how we learn and establish ourselves. Your projects will suck at first, you will get no users at first, you will make no money at first (if you care about $). And then you'll iterate and improve. It's only normal. Finally, as far as picking projects goes, don't pick a pie-in-the-sky-idea! Pick something you can finish in two or three weeks, or maybe even shorter. Anything longer and you'll get disappointed at your lack of progress. You don't have to create the next Facebook. Create a throwaway app for the app store (and don't be discouraged if you don't make much from it.) Learning how to ship small projects will be incredibly painful but that is how you will grow and become happier with yourself. HTH.

billpatrianakos 15y ago
Yes! You said just what I was thinking. Thank you for being able to articulate it better than I could.
dazedconfused 15y ago
Thank you. Yes I don't really know the feeling of what is like to create something, this kills me. I am constantly disappointed by my code, it sucks, it's really bad and that also makes me lose motivation whenever I try to build something, for some reason failure is a permanent constant and the fear that I am going to fail anyway keeps me from actually getting trough building something to the end...
- d_r 15y ago
  That's fair, but who actually cares about how good your code is? Make it work. Hack things together. After you practically code for longer, patterns will emerge, you'll refactor and rewrite as necessary. At any point in time, if I look at code I have written earlier, I shudder at how awful it was. Finally, "fear that I am going to fail" is silly. It's the other way. You're starting at the point of failure. You have nothing right now. Accept that, and then you won't have to hold yourself to such a high standard. Start somewhere (and remember that you "suck" at first), and keep at it. Seriously.
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  * fear that I am going to fail anyway * That's a shallow explanation; what does this fear of failure mean, to you personally? Fear that who will say what? Fear that who will think what? Why is it that you associate failing in these tasks as such a bad thing?
- karmajunkie 15y ago
  Pretty much everything sucks when you start it. Its only by working on something sucky that you figure out A) this sucks and B) how to fix it. I've got a couple of gems that are embarrassingly bad in spots—they (mostly) get better over time. Remember that software development is much much a procedural skill than a memorized skill. You have to do it, and you have to do it a lot, before you'll be great at it. Get started making the mistakes you need to make, and don't let them get you down. We've all got projects we didn't really get off the ground.
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  I don't really know the feeling of what is like to create something. Take a cooking class. I'm absolutely serious about this. You learn to build things by building things, and you build things by following recipes, recipes that are very slightly above your skill level, but no more. Go get some recipes, and use the techniques they tell you to use, and build some pancakes, and eat them. [1] Then you will "know the feeling of what it is like to create something." Something tasty. I can hear you already: "My pancakes are just pancakes! They are not amazing and original pancakes." This is true. You need to get over that. Trying to amaze yourself is generally a waste of time. You can't do it consistently – that's what "amazing" means: something that doesn't happen every day. If what you want to do is create things, lots of things, every day, you've got to realize that it's not going to feel amazing while you're doing it. It's going to feel normal. But: It will be tasty. Oh, there are worse fates than being so good at making pancakes that you can make them without even thinking. For one thing, other people will eventually start talking about your amazing pancakes, and even though you'll know in your heart that they're flattering you - hey, they're just the same pancakes that you've made a hundred times, from a recipe, with only a minor tweak or two - it will still be gratifying. And maybe in thirty years you'll be the next Anthony Bourdain, and you'll be out drinking one night and suddenly you'll look at yourself and your own life and be amazed: You remember starting off with the pancakes, and you just kept trying a little more every day, and then there was the day you got a job cranking out those pancakes on the line, and man was that an educational experience, but now it's years later and you're shocked to find that you're some kind of breakfast legend, people line up for your amazing cooking, and at that moment you'll actually be amazed at yourself for everything you have accomplished. You'll be amazed for at least five minutes, maybe even ten minutes, depending on how much you've been drinking. [2] Then you'll wake up the next morning and go back to work, just like we all do. Anyway, programming. Throw SICP away and try something like Zed Shaw's Learn Python the Hard Way, something with a lot of exercises. Do all the exercises. Then do some of those programming-contest-type problems. Do little problems, ten-minute problems, thirty-minute problems. Practice the art of small victories. --- [1] No, do not use a pancake mix. That's like copy-and-paste. [2] Incidentally, alcohol is a depressant, so don't think I'm seriously recommending it to someone who is already depressed. Coffee! I meant coffee!

by d_r 15y ago

billpatrianakos 15y ago

Yes! You said just what I was thinking. Thank you for being able to articulate it better than I could.

dazedconfused 15y ago

Thank you. Yes I don't really know the feeling of what is like to create something, this kills me. I am constantly disappointed by my code, it sucks, it's really bad and that also makes me lose motivation whenever I try to build something, for some reason failure is a permanent constant and the fear that I am going to fail anyway keeps me from actually getting trough building something to the end...

d_r 15y ago
That's fair, but who actually cares about how good your code is? Make it work. Hack things together. After you practically code for longer, patterns will emerge, you'll refactor and rewrite as necessary. At any point in time, if I look at code I have written earlier, I shudder at how awful it was. Finally, "fear that I am going to fail" is silly. It's the other way. You're starting at the point of failure. You have nothing right now. Accept that, and then you won't have to hold yourself to such a high standard. Start somewhere (and remember that you "suck" at first), and keep at it. Seriously.
jodrellblank 15y ago
* fear that I am going to fail anyway * That's a shallow explanation; what does this fear of failure mean, to you personally? Fear that who will say what? Fear that who will think what? Why is it that you associate failing in these tasks as such a bad thing?
karmajunkie 15y ago
Pretty much everything sucks when you start it. Its only by working on something sucky that you figure out A) this sucks and B) how to fix it. I've got a couple of gems that are embarrassingly bad in spots—they (mostly) get better over time. Remember that software development is much much a procedural skill than a memorized skill. You have to do it, and you have to do it a lot, before you'll be great at it. Get started making the mistakes you need to make, and don't let them get you down. We've all got projects we didn't really get off the ground.
mechanical_fish 15y ago
I don't really know the feeling of what is like to create something. Take a cooking class. I'm absolutely serious about this. You learn to build things by building things, and you build things by following recipes, recipes that are very slightly above your skill level, but no more. Go get some recipes, and use the techniques they tell you to use, and build some pancakes, and eat them. [1] Then you will "know the feeling of what it is like to create something." Something tasty. I can hear you already: "My pancakes are just pancakes! They are not amazing and original pancakes." This is true. You need to get over that. Trying to amaze yourself is generally a waste of time. You can't do it consistently – that's what "amazing" means: something that doesn't happen every day. If what you want to do is create things, lots of things, every day, you've got to realize that it's not going to feel amazing while you're doing it. It's going to feel normal. But: It will be tasty. Oh, there are worse fates than being so good at making pancakes that you can make them without even thinking. For one thing, other people will eventually start talking about your amazing pancakes, and even though you'll know in your heart that they're flattering you - hey, they're just the same pancakes that you've made a hundred times, from a recipe, with only a minor tweak or two - it will still be gratifying. And maybe in thirty years you'll be the next Anthony Bourdain, and you'll be out drinking one night and suddenly you'll look at yourself and your own life and be amazed: You remember starting off with the pancakes, and you just kept trying a little more every day, and then there was the day you got a job cranking out those pancakes on the line, and man was that an educational experience, but now it's years later and you're shocked to find that you're some kind of breakfast legend, people line up for your amazing cooking, and at that moment you'll actually be amazed at yourself for everything you have accomplished. You'll be amazed for at least five minutes, maybe even ten minutes, depending on how much you've been drinking. [2] Then you'll wake up the next morning and go back to work, just like we all do. Anyway, programming. Throw SICP away and try something like Zed Shaw's Learn Python the Hard Way, something with a lot of exercises. Do all the exercises. Then do some of those programming-contest-type problems. Do little problems, ten-minute problems, thirty-minute problems. Practice the art of small victories. --- [1] No, do not use a pancake mix. That's like copy-and-paste. [2] Incidentally, alcohol is a depressant, so don't think I'm seriously recommending it to someone who is already depressed. Coffee! I meant coffee!