Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 173 posts

Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

#101

Post by hyperpallium »

Diagnosis: bored.

See other comments on interest. I'll address your thoughts. You're speaking casually, but your exaggerations can be dangerous when you're vulnerable:

> nothing sticks.

Not literally true that "nothing" sticks, since you later mention things you recall.

> I fail to understand, fail to recognize patterns

There's partial understanding and levels of understanding. You can notice progress by comparing your present understanding with before.

> am too slow to understand simple concepts

Here you admit you do gain understanding, but dismiss it. What is the threshold for fast enough?

> and never retain anything.

Again, not literally true that "nothing" is retained.

> Occasionally understand the individual concepts of something but then her completely lost when they're all combined in some applied method.

Again, you admit understanding, but dismiss it because of difficulty in the next step. Also, "completely" lost is not literally true.

---

These casual exaggerations are dangerous when you start to believe them, because they aren't literally true. Changing them won't solve the problem completely, but you'll see it more clearly and that helps to solve it! Advice:

  notice what you _have_
  retained/understood/applied
  (especially in contrast with before)
[But the real problem is boredom]

Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

#102

Post by andrewnc »

irishcoffee wrote: post #92
prostheticvamp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a mental health specialist: No that is not. We treat disease. Pretending we can fine-tune personality traits is quackery, and no respectable mental health specialist would lay claim to that. But don’t worry - quacks abound, and they even take your insurance.

How does one go about identifying a non-quack in your field? I’m in the market and I’ve been disappointed with the 2 I’ve seen...

My wife is a therapist, her suggestion is to go call up the largest local University and talk to folks in their psych department for recommendations.

They're usually much more science driven and grounded.

Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

#103

Post by ximeng »

throwaway88p wrote: post #48
codac_mac wrote: post #25

I often worry about this myself, and I highly agree with what some others are saying: find a problem/task that interests you or is worth solving - and work on it until it's solved, regardless of how difficult it is or inadequate it may make you feel by not understanding it at first. If you can't find a challenge, then maybe try going out of your way to add new feature /functionality to your CRUD apps. The challenges…

> find a problem/task that interests you or is worth solving - and work on it until it's solved, regardless of how difficult I guess part of the problem is that those problems tend to be rare. The way I feel, is that if I have a problem, it's likely already been solved (in which case I'll just use that solution), or people much more intelligent than me are already working on it. Another issue seems be be is that as t…

You could consider talking more about what you are interested in, what makes you happy, and less about the problems with your current situation. If you have even a little bit of energy that you can put towards something which you care about more than what you're working on now, you can start to move your life in a new direction. Eventually you'll start to take some risks that you are not brave enough to take now, but you need to be positive. Don't worry about making drastic changes now, they can come when you're ready.

Complex problems are good if you care about them. A smart person working on it is a good sign. You just need to find a small way to contribute or even just to learn, you don't need to take over the world. Just do one small thing towards finding what you care about.

In short, don't worry about changing your current routine and job, try to find something you really care about and work more on that in your free time. Trust your gut.

Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

#104

Post by zoomablemind »

I sense a frustration with status quo. As always it's a spectrum of causes. Job, or purpose may just be one. Important one, no doubt, but sometimes not the decisive one. Young hearts are movable, so are their minds, given enough interest either from within or from outside.

Being you, I'd first try to figure out how much money I need to feel comfortable. Then ask if I can afford to be less comfortable and for how long. Then I'd look if anyone else depends on me for their comfort.

Finally, I'd try to imagine what I'd do in my free time should I forget about all of the above. AND for how long would I be ready to stay oblivious in that.

If I see myself making money while doing that thing that I imagined, I try to write it down and later figure out a plan to make that happen... eventually.

Meanwhile, I'd take some rest and solve something approacheable. This will sure be a booster, to start believing that you've got that thing that you think matters in life. And you can make it better!

Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

#105

Post by Alex63 »

It's interesting to me that you say you did software development as a hobbyist before you made it your job. So presumably there was something that interested you enough to pursue it in your spare time. It would be interesting to know more about what does interest you, as opposed to the things that don't. Maybe you could provide more info?

I agree with commentators who say software development can be a terrible job if you aren't really interested in it. I knew a lot of young consultants at Accenture when I worked there in the early 90s who hated the programming roles they were expected to do for the first couple of years. But most of them were not from comp sci backgrounds, and wanted to move into management consulting roles as quickly as possible.

Based on your comments about having trouble learning and generalizing, it sounds like you might be happier in a more process-oriented role. Or maybe you would be happier in a role that was more focused on personal interaction?

Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

#106

Post by throwaway88p »

dlandis wrote: post #3

Do you feel passionate about any particular subject, trade, or issue at all, regardless of whether or not it's connected to tech? Reminds me of this famous scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu2HhlTEHMc

Passionate? not really much anymore. There are a number of things I'll take fleeting interest in after reading / watching some stuff, ranging from different technical subjects, to scientific subject, etc. Nothing ever seems to stick, though.

Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

#107

Post by throwaway88p »

t-writescode wrote: post #96
throwaway88p wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I'm stupid, but I do believe that most people have a sort of "ceiling" in regards to their capabilities, intellectual or otherwise. I'm mostly curious about what to do when those something they're interested in 's fall outside of your capability.

When it comes to recognizing patterns in programming and such, I have a couple questions: * did you ever go to college for programming? if not, a lot of the 'patterns' people see were beaten into their heads in college, so that's something that can be helped :) * have you ever done competitive programming, like TopCoder problems (the old ones. Last I checked, TopCoder has gotten WAY over my head and probably a lot of…

Never went to school, i did have an brief experience with competitive programming back in HS, but didn't do very well.

Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

#108

Post by bachmeier »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #82
bachmeier wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wrote "writing and maintaining simple CRUD apps, and to be honest I hate it. Its mind numbingly boring and I certainly dont want to spend my life doing that". This has nothing to do with hitting the ceiling of your capabilities. You don't like the things you're doing. I don't even see any reason to say you don't like programming, just that you don't like what you're doing now.

> You wrote "writing and maintaining simple CRUD apps, and to be honest I hate it. Its mind numbingly boring and I certainly dont want to spend my life doing that". > This has nothing to do with hitting the ceiling of your capabilities. He also wrote "I fail to understand, fail to recognize patterns, am too slow to understand simple concepts and never retain anything. Occasionally understand the individual concepts o…

That follows from the part I quoted. It would be very unusual for someone to be good at a task they know they don't want to do and that they find mind numbingly boring.

Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

#109

Post by throwaway88p »

new_guy wrote: post #30

Something no-one else has mentioned yet is learning methods. Stuff might not be sticking because you're using the wrong learning method for you. Instead of reading a book, maybe watch a video tutorial instead, learn by doing etc, get a mentor to pair program with? Also look up 'imposter syndrome', it does sound a lot like you're suffering from self-esteem issues too so maybe get someone to talk with?

Interestingly, I've never been a fan of video tutorials in the past, but have tried using them in the past weeks. There are some aspects of it I like. It's easier to keep attention with a video than a large wall of text these days (though it used to be the opposite). Unfortunately, it's not so easy to skip around content in a video, for example to avoid useless filler content or to return to a small chunk of content to review.

Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?

#110

Post by jawns »

prostheticvamp wrote: post #84
notduncansmith wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a job for a mental health specialist. There are psychological reasons underlying the initial interests and the subsequent fading of interest, and the right specialist will be able to identify those and use them to guide you down the path to sticking to something.

Speaking as a mental health specialist: No that is not. We treat disease. Pretending we can fine-tune personality traits is quackery, and no respectable mental health specialist would lay claim to that. But don’t worry - quacks abound, and they even take your insurance.

I think most people have a capacity for introspection, but some need more direction than others to actually do it and connect the dots. So maybe a core personality trait is largely unchangeable, but being able to recognize its existence and zero in on how it is affecting your life can lead to some real breakthroughs.

I don't know if the best person to help someone through this process of introspection is a psychologist or a life coach or a spiritual director or a teacher or a stranger in a coffee shop, but it seems like there's a place for it somewhere.

Post reply on HN