So I help out in a development forum for a framework I use at work. I learned a crap ton by seeing questions people ask, then learning to solve them myself. I have really enjoyed being in that forum that past 4 years.

Yet, I see people who cannot seem to reason themselves out of a paper bag at times. I see questions of I cannot run this linux executable because there are parenthesis in the filename. I mean most console interfaces are just tab complete even with special characters. This is for a developer in their 50s that has been coding 30 years. Or I see other programmers asking basic questions that 5 minutes with the docs would solve. Most of the ones that I have issue with seem to have been a part of that community a lot longer than myself.

How do developers survive without problem solving skills to understand the frameworks or tools they use?

I had another conversation with a dev in another forum about using "man" in Linux to figure out how to use something. They said something to the effect: "try learning awk from a manpage". I explained about how "back in the day" we learned EVERYTHING from man pages. That is why they are called "man" pages.

Is the industry flooded with idiots now?

c++ has a little bit of a learning curve, I think.

Used smart pointers everywhere in my code because I heard that's what we gotta do nowadays.

When learning about shared vs unique vs weak, I disregarded weak pointers because I didn't really understand them.

"That sounds like something for liberal pansies", I said to myself, then continued on with my STRONG shared and unique pointers.

Now my app leaks memory like a MOTHERFUCKER, if you can believe that.

So now I need to go back and manage my object lifetime with more intent instead of just making everything a shared pointer. Fuckin circular references. Fuckin reaping what I fuckin sow. God damn.