This. My own suspicion is that you the OP is highly intelligent and recognizes all of these weaknesses due to his own intelligence rather than a lack of it.

I can relate to some of these things in a way. When I was 15 I tried to teach myself TC++. I got hung up on pointers and thought that I just wasn't smart enough to understand them. Many years later I had somebody who helped me understand pointers and I realized that I just wasn't interested in learning past that point.

I had kicked myself many times for not following through on learning TC++. I thought that I was too dumb to be a programmer. Turns out I just don't want to be a programmer! Sure I can bash script pretty well and I can knock together some PHP to do something if I absolutely have to or even a little python, but I only get out those tools when I neede them to accomplish a primary goal.

It turns out that I'm quite good at writing, teaching, and identifying areas where specific tools can help the people who I am teaching. So I write, teach, and build tools as needed.

And just because I do them in bash or do them poorly in Python doesn't mean that I'm bad at programming. It just means it's not where my strengths are and that I focus on what I am good at and love doing.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that you aren't a bad programmer. You're just better and more interested in something else and you need to figure out what that thing is and pursue it and put programming on the back burner as a superpower as was mentioned in the previous comment above this one.

> but I only get out those tools when I neede them to accomplish a primary goal.

Actually, I think this might be an interesting thing for the OP to look into in itself.

Since in my experience, people's interest in any field tends to fall along a spectrum between 'does it for the art/sake of it' and 'does it to achieve a certain goal'.

If you're the latter, then of course you're likely to struggle with a lot of tutorials, since you don't see the value in the end result. Why would I learn about some new code organisation setup to build this dummy notes app when I have absolutely zero need/interest in a notes app? If you're that kind of thinker, you'll struggle to maintain interest in many tutorials simply because there's no real payoff for them beyond 'build some useless crap nobody needs'.

Ad it may explain the lack of interest in work too. Some people just cannot enjoy working on things they themselves have no passion for. If that's the case, the OP may be best served by looking for a company that is working on something they have a personal interest in.

As said, that doesn't make for a bad programmer (or a bad anything in any field). It just means you've got a different incentive structure to people who create stuff for the sake of it.

I appreciate this insight so much. I'm in the thick of working through the feelings of failure that are associated with an honest preference. There is a voice in my head that says "you're a failure" or "you just can't hack it" when I honestly just don't have the preference to keep learning in that direction.

Someone else in this thread mentioned therapy and that has helped me immensely in this pursuit but.. It also helps to relate to other people in the same situation.

May we all feel some peace!

Also, you raised a point that is very relevant - you couldn't understand pointers when you were 15, but now you do.

There is some level of cognitive maturity required to understand new ideas. I understood pointers somewhat from school, but it really made sense to me once I learned about computer architecture in more detail.

Sometimes you need to see the whole picture to understand why an element is present there and usually that happens only if you stay long enough with a problem/concept.

On the other hand though, could you say that someone's interests are to a degree dictated by their capabilities? It seems to me like the distinguishing factor between someone who is interested in a challenging field vs. someone who is not, is that the person interested often understands the material to a degree that maybe the other person is unable to. For them studying and doing the work may take substantially less effort and thus their interest continues, even when things become difficult.

This is probably why many programmers are uninterested in your chosen field of teaching.

TLDR, isn't "disinterest" often a cognitive bias driven by some subconscious estimation that we're unable to do something?

I think this affects everyone, a lot.

Yes, and! Things are often less black and white than this. The more I dig into what I think I want, the more influences I find. I want to impress my parents, I want to provide a super safe and comfortable life for my partner, I want people to notice the company I work for and smile and think I'm smart. As I take the time to pull those things apart, and wow does it take time, the call to teach and write is quieter but maybe truer? I don't know. I have to test it out.

TL;DR I think disinterest is driven by a combination of capability and soul AND (sometimes very loud) outside influences.

Well the flip side is that being a programmer can get you access to a lot of interesting fields, especially fields which don't have an abundance of technically savvy people. These also tend to be fields that have strong humanitarian impact, or utility. I like solving people's problems and I can do that through code.

Lots of people work as software consultants. It's really no different from physical trades - you know your tools, people come to you with problems, you solve them.

I do think a big factor is choosing what you work on though. It's a lot less fun if your projects are dictated to you, unless you happen to really enjoy your field.

> Programming as a career is rarely fulfilling to anyone.

I think this is unnecessarily controversial. "Rarely to anyone" needs evidence. Plenty of happy programmers around.

I get your (or Zed Shaw's?) point though. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a programmer, but programming for the sake of programming is a fast way to get bored or to burn out. Programming is a tool. It doesn't hold inherent value without being applied to a particular problem. So find problems that you would like solved, or at least find out what sort of problems you enjoy solving.

I definitely should have clarified my statement further as I agree with yours and you seem to disagree with mine. Let's go with yours.

"... programming for the sake of programming is a fast way to get bored or to burn out."

That's exactly right.

>I'm basically talking to myself with this pep talk so I appreciate you bringing it up but.. let's both go find the thing that we like and apply programming to that thing!

Good way to put it. Programming is not a end in itself, it's a tool like many other that we use to navigate the sh*t called life.