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Why am I such an average ?

It's just a sad realisation. Nobody cares but I wanna send this out there, just to write thoughts.. I am 18 in 3rd year of high school (grammar school so nothing IT related, basically waste of time) and in IT I'm all self taught but I feel like I could be better if I just didn't [something]..

I feel like I wanna learn so many things but when I look at you, it seems like a common problem in the IT sphere so hey, average guy joining the club.

I also feel dumb when programming. I didn't manage to learn C++ in it's entirety because to really accomplish something, you've got so many ways to do it and finding the best one requires deep understanding of the tools you've got at your disposal with the language and I feel like I'm not capable of this(self learn, in school/Uni that's different story).. But many (most) of you are. I've tried many coding challenges and when I got it working, I just saw how someone did it in one line just by layering functions that I've never heard of..

Also, we've got kinda specific national competition here in many fields including IT for high schools.. And the winners always do sometimes like "AI driven Life simulation" or "Self flying drone made from ATMega from scratch with 3D simulation in C# to it" or "Game engine" or whatever shit and it's always from grammar schools and never IT related schools.. They are like me. Maybe someone helped them, I don't know, but they are just so far away from me while I'm here struggling to get the basic level of math for any kind of machine learning..

Yeah I've written Neural Network from scratch in C but meh, honestly it's pretty basic stuff .. I'd rather understand derivatives which we're going to learn next year and I'm too lazy to learn it from khan academy because I always learn something else.. Like processing (actually codetrain started teaching tensorflow so that might be the light for me...) Or VHDL (guys you can create your own chip / CPU from scratch and it's not even hard and OMFG it's so fucking cool , full adder done yay) or RPi or commodore 64 assembly or game development with Godot and just meh..

I mean, this sounds exactly like not knowing what to do and doing nothing in the end. That was me like 6-12 months ago. Now I'm managing to pick 2-3 things and focus them and actually feel the progress.

But I lost track of the original point.. I didn't do anything special, every time I'm programming something, everyone does it better and I feel dumb. I will probably never do anything special, everyone around says "He's still learning he's genius" but they have no idea.

I mean, have you seen one of the newest videos on Google's YouTube channel (I openly hate them, but I will keep that away for now), something like "Sarah story" ? It's about girl that apparently didn't care about IT but self learned tensorflow on high school. I think it may be bullshit (like ALL of their videos ) but it's probably just fancied, not complete lie.

And again, here I am. I now C but I'm incapable of learning to program good which most of you did and are now doing for living. I'm incapable to do anything cool, just understanding what everybody else did and replicating it. I'm incapable of being clever.

Sorry, just misusing devrant to vent a bit

Comments
  • 2
    I'mma get some sleep now. Hope to sleep it away (if it makes any sense; whatever), wish you luck guys.. In anything you do, really

    Sorry if I ruined the fun here.. Just continue devRanting, it's just me ventilating in a weird way and not really knowing what I'm doing.. But hey, I'm eighteen, sounds appropriate (which reminds me of a dude from devrant who had his company at 17 yo and was making a living by writing web pages, yeah, sounds like, you're just way too awesome, guys..)
  • 4
    Hey easy budy, life is hard and some have advantages, but shure you have something. You really wanna do great things, but they take time, and you reaaaaaally wanna learn and improve yourself, just with that you are over the average.
    I know c#, learned it while working (consultant company doesn’t mind if you can code). Some of the guys that are here (and some that left) have done so many great things with code (in the app) and you just say “wooooow what wew you thinking when you did that?” Most of the time the answer is “got inspired, dont know what i did”.
    The point is, you can’t know everything, there is always something else to learn, something new, but you can’t give up.
    Cheers up, you will make something great, just keep going and never stop!
  • 6
    There is nothing that can prevent you from learning more. Shit at 18 I was barely starting with code...and you already built a neural network in fucking C out of all languages.

    Trust me, do not judge your skills based out of what others have done. Use it as inspiration instead.

    People work in teams and build amazing shit through collaboration and we all learn from one another. Its the best thing when egos are set aside and all we do is learn and its beautiful when your area is in a constant state of evolution.

    Trust your skills, hone them and respect them. Don't compare them, you are insulting yourself, your pride and your capabilities. Grow every day as you have done, bite the bullet and force your ass to learn new shit every day. Make your builds better and always strive to surprise you and you alone, fuck everyone else (even me) and do what you must to be able to say "man I am fucking awesome" at the end of the day.

    PRIDE MOTHERFUCKER, YOU HAVE EARNED IT
  • 6
    @DragTu @AleCx04 You guys want me to melt.. I feel like crying inside from this.. Just thank you... Thank you so much..
    Every word you write, it's just something I'm gonna think about when I wake up and get as much as I can from it and ah, this really makes me feel so much better..

    Thank you.. Really.. And good night (at least for me, I'm gonna get to you in the morning)
  • 3
    Why do this? You know you are good and you know you are not average. Learning C on your own and building neural networks? That's no small feat. I've had classmates so dumb that they couldn't write a simple "hello world" program.

    You are doing great, but it bothers me that you're so desperate for validation and attention. You're like those moron kids on YouTube saying "HEEEY, I'M ONLY 15 AND I LISTEN TO MUSIC PEOPLE OF MY AGE DON'T LISTEN TO, I'M SPECIAAAAL".

    I get it, though. Everyone's like that in their teens. Later on you'll realize that doing this is stupid.

    Keep learning and keep getting better.
  • 3
    After 11 years of professional programming, six of which was at the enterprise level (Fortune 1 and 82); I found you don’t pick the “best” way. You pick a way that is understandable and supportable at the scale you run under. It may or may not be the best, but companies don’t care about programming they care about support and operating cost with the business value it enables.
  • 3
    a fellow coding train'er :) you list a lot of things that are impressive already, you're just struggling with the IT disease; "what do I want to do in life" and "others do it better"

    everybody of us (some more than others) has had this at some point, don't give it that much thought and just keep experimenting and learning, especially in IT, there's never an end to possibilities

    and you're more than welcome on devrant, we all support each other here
  • 1
    Also if all things said here, still doesn't quite cheer you up enough, get therapy, it's really nothing to be afraid of or be ashamed of, it's better to hook into it too early than too late.

    Personally I feel the trick to getting better overall and feeling better about your skillset, is not comparing yourself to others, but actually learn as much as possible from them, devrant is filled with amazing people that all know new and interesting stuff, interact with them, ask them about what they do or what they are passionate about, they appreciate it and also you'll have more things to learn or ask for :)
  • 2
    Dude just do wtv you feel like doing xD Build stuff. Select some objectives. Neural networks, good job. Fgpa programming nice. Now, next thing is microcontroller. Just push it forward. Just don't give up. Programming is fun and engineering in general is doing with programming, so build stuff and don't put to much pressure on yourself.
  • 3
    If you think you’re average, it probably means you’re good but are self aware and have high standards for yourself. That’s a good thing.

    The way I am (I’m 35 btw) is that if I don’t fully understand something (not just coding) then I feel uncomfortable and inadequate, and I feel like I’m falling behind. But then it clicks and I’m back with the bunch, and in an even stronger position!

    Stick at it, you’ll get to a more contented place soon. Rant whenever you feel like it, there’s lots of us that care and want to help.
  • 3
    Your bloody 18 man. Im 30 and im learning now and you make me feel like an idiot (no grudges).

    There will always be some one better than you, and if not, only for a very short amount of time.

    Just tey and be better than you were yesterday and you cant go wrong.

    Also, there are a lot of bullshiters in the workplace. They re good at bullshitting and get through with that.
  • 3
    Saw a good tweet about this not so long ago:

    A software developer’s confidence throughout their life:

    0 years experience: I have no idea what’s going on

    5 years experience: I AM A SENIOR DEVELOPER I CAN BUILD ANYTHING GET OUTTA MY WAY

    10/15 years experience: I like my personal life

    20 years experience: I AM AN IMPOSTOR

    I've hit the 20 year mark and regularly feel like an impostor. Anyone who tells you they know exactly what they're doing all the time is lying, probably to themselves. Or maybe they're just at the 5 year mark haha.

    Also, take comfort in the fact that the IT industry is horribly broken. We deal with ridiculous amounts of complexity that have nothing to do with the problem we're actually trying to solve. Customers couldn't give a shit about SQL, web sockets, caching, REST, GraphQL, tensorflow, machine learning, etc, etc, etc.

    Point is, feel good, buddy. Keep learning, keep improving. It's a great career in the grand scheme of things!
  • 2
    How is this a misuse of devrant?! It's just a self rant..

    Go easy on yourself! Some people are naturals, some are not. If something interests you enough you will prosper in learning it when the time comes.

    Imho the self realisation that you are not clever already shows that you are not a total failure (maybe not the most appropriate choice of wording here), but there are people out there who don't even realise they have room for improvement. And this is scarry.

    So keep on discovering new things, learn from others and constantly try to improve. But don't compare yourself. Not in coding not with other stuff in life. No point in it & you'll only get depressed.
  • 2
    @telephantasm Thanks for being honest, I value this. Maybe. I don't remember know why I did this, just helped me vent a bit
    @joycestick Thanks for this amazing view
    @Santaclauze This is what helps me; get better every day
    @danderson00 You're awesome. Seeing the bad sides of IT is really valuable and you still see it even after 20 years in the game! Love that, getting little bit above
    @sladuled Haha, you actually made me laugh with the brackets, I get you. Awesome. Thank you

    And everybody.. Thank you, I value everything you write, seriously
  • 0
    @shinobiultra glad to be of service! ;)

    I've been to hell and back for shit like this.. when other people were always bragging what they achieved and wanted me to be their copy etc... once I realised I am my own person, and noone can tell me how to live...and I stopped comparing myself to others and just be happy with myself, a new life has started for me.. once you are happy with yourself and want to improve just for yourself, miracles can happen..
  • 2
    mate, you are learning IT while attending a grammar school!!
    I am proud of you 😊
  • 2
    @shinobiultra :) you know it bro. Stay strong my dude. And keep coding. You will look back at this in the future and realize you had nothing to worry about.

    Trust me, you will be great if you keep going.
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