Ask HN: Should I quit trying to be a programmer?

I recently graduated with a computer science degree in a top 50 school and have been grinding leetcode in preparation of applying to a job. I have no work experience and had a lot of help to get through the degree. About half of the coding assignments required for my degree I either didn’t do or was carried. I also got generous accommodations due to a disability. My in major GPA is 3.0.

I take an extremely long time to come up with solutions to any problems. I enjoy trying to solve problems and coming up with a high level solution, but I get stuck for hours on details or miss vital parts of the algorithm so often it becomes a drag. Personal projects take me an extreme amount of time too and I haven’t made any of note. I’m not good at organizing code and I am not detail orientated which means I tend to get a lot of one off type errors and can take hours to find them. Even problems I’ve seen before, I’ll likely forget the solution or fail to recreate it.

To give a concrete example of some of the above, just this morning I tried to code the brute force solution following problem: Give two sorted arrays return the median. I spent over an hour trying to implement the brute force solution involving linearly going through each array and couldn’t code it in Python. The entire time I was struggling to figure out how to increase the respective index variables given different cases, how I would ensure one of the numbers the indices landed was the median, how to differentiate which of the array indices I was keeping track of was the actual median and finally how to determine the next number I needed if the lengths of both arrays were even.

Many problems go the same way. I don’t know what the difference between the normal struggle associated with coding is and the sort of struggle that means it’s just not for me. I'm not looking for encouragement per se, but objective feedback on which group I belong to and practical advice on how to move forward.

Objectively, I would say that the problem you struggled with this morning should be doable by someone in comp sci 102 (and probably comp sci 101). That you're struggling with something like this, suggests that you're very out of practice and really haven't done any significant work recently (or at least not in Python). That doesn't mean you're unhirable, but it does mean that you're going to need to spend a lot of time prepping and working, probably significantly more time than your colleagues.

With that said, think about why you chose to major in computer science and what classes you enjoyed the most. Maybe there's a specialty you really want to do, maybe you would prefer to do something tangential to programming like project management, information security or data analysis. You may find more it more interesting and easier to work on practical projects. It's probably worth trying some web development work (especially in languages such as ruby or python with foreach semantics where you won't need to worry about off by one errors as much)

Here are my two cents. The reason why you're talking such a long time to get simple things done is because you haven't had enough experience. You said you were carried through projects and assignments, so this is all coming back to bite you. By letting yourself get carried, you missed out on the opportunity to make stupid mistakes, think through design choices, and learn what's good and bad.

Alas, not all is lost. Screw what you did wrong yesterday and in the past, and start fresh today.

For personal projects, keep the scope minimal. Better to finish something than not finish anything at all. And if you're struggling with something as basic as type errors, then your approach to programming is wrong. You have to drill this to your head: code a little, test a little.

Of course, all of this on the assumption that you have speckles of ember left to turn it into a fire - to have the drive to learn and improve.

Best of luck.

My advice to you: pick a language and write a version of Space Invaders. Or find something else to tinker with. Bottom line, you need to practice your skill to get good at it. Right now you sound like you’re stuck in your head. Do something that renders your problem-solving skills in meatspace.

Ever since I started playing around with game development, I've learned so many important things. It's also extremely rewarding to see and interact with everything you're writing in the form of a game. I'd highly recommend doing this as a hobby.