Re:Ask HN: I can never learn coding
by JeffRosenberg on Monday May 20, 2019 @09:11AM
(#19959949)
I have no idea if this is applicable to your particular situation, but I'll share what helped me. Maybe you're similar to me, but YMMV.
I tried on and off to learn programming for years, and I was never able to get any traction until I started doing it as part of an actual job. I just have never been able to get myself to focus on manufactured projects whose only purpose is learning to code. I needed actual business problems to focus on, and an environment where I couldn't just abandon my project with no repercussions.
I started out small, and with tasks that were related to my (non-programming) job -- these made my life easier but weren't on anybody's radar at the business. I was selling mortgages at the time, and built myself a better mortgage calculator, slowing delving into Excel's Visual Basic for Applications when I wanted to do things Excel wouldn't let me do without code.
After getting comfortable with that, I found more opportunities to do light programming that helped make my job easier, in the few hours at a time when I didn't have critical tasks in my day-to-day work. I started using SQL and VBA in Microsoft Access, then moved on to SQL Server and C# by taking a few freelance jobs. They paid terribly, but I took them more because they forced me to solve real problems using "real" programming tools. Eventually I was able to turn that SQL Server and C# toolkit into my full-time job.
TL;DR: what I needed were real-world problems to solve. If you can, find some way to write some simple scripts to simplify your everyday life, and use that to build on.
I tried on and off to learn programming for years, and I was never able to get any traction until I started doing it as part of an actual job. I just have never been able to get myself to focus on manufactured projects whose only purpose is learning to code. I needed actual business problems to focus on, and an environment where I couldn't just abandon my project with no repercussions.
I started out small, and with tasks that were related to my (non-programming) job -- these made my life easier but weren't on anybody's radar at the business. I was selling mortgages at the time, and built myself a better mortgage calculator, slowing delving into Excel's Visual Basic for Applications when I wanted to do things Excel wouldn't let me do without code.
After getting comfortable with that, I found more opportunities to do light programming that helped make my job easier, in the few hours at a time when I didn't have critical tasks in my day-to-day work. I started using SQL and VBA in Microsoft Access, then moved on to SQL Server and C# by taking a few freelance jobs. They paid terribly, but I took them more because they forced me to solve real problems using "real" programming tools. Eventually I was able to turn that SQL Server and C# toolkit into my full-time job.
TL;DR: what I needed were real-world problems to solve. If you can, find some way to write some simple scripts to simplify your everyday life, and use that to build on.