Re:Ask HN: What's the most difficult part of learning to pro...
by drakonka on Tuesday August 28, 2018 @03:18AM
(#17857069)
As a self taught programmer who has mostly utilized project based learning, the most challenging parts for me have been:
* Knowing my own knowledge gaps. I know there's a lot I don't know, but it can be difficult to pinpoint _what that is_ exactly because if I don't encounter it in a project I may not even see the gap until I _do_ encounter it one day. Supplementing with short structured courses like Pluralsight, Safari Books Online, etc has helped in this regard.
* Being confident that you're solving things in a good way. "This approach works, but is this really the best approach or is there some existing pattern or data structure I should be using for this that I just don't know about yet?"
Both of these things have become easier to address with time and practice.
* Knowing my own knowledge gaps. I know there's a lot I don't know, but it can be difficult to pinpoint _what that is_ exactly because if I don't encounter it in a project I may not even see the gap until I _do_ encounter it one day. Supplementing with short structured courses like Pluralsight, Safari Books Online, etc has helped in this regard.
* Being confident that you're solving things in a good way. "This approach works, but is this really the best approach or is there some existing pattern or data structure I should be using for this that I just don't know about yet?"
Both of these things have become easier to address with time and practice.