from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why is learning to code difficult?

by pskittle on 2/21/15, 11:25 AM with 11 comments

• by CyberFonic on 2/21/15, 12:00 PM

  Is it? A couple of million people have learnt to code quite well. Some learnt quickly, others after lot of time and effort. Most are still learning after years of experience.

  Learning something new is generally difficult. For example, a baby doesn't just stand up and walk. Most people don't just get on a bike and pedal away the very first time.

  If you would like some help from HN folks, perhaps you could tell us what language(s) you have tried, describe how you find learning to code difficult, what you have tried and what the results have been so far. Doing so might elicit feedback that is in line with your experiences to date.

• by bitshepherd on 2/21/15, 3:51 PM

  I find it difficult to remember the jargon and idioms, and this day in age when one might switch between a few different languages just to solve one problem, it just gets more difficult.

  I don't have a degree. Hell, I barely completed high school. But if push comes to shove, I can dig deep in a foreign codebase in a foreign language and figure out where something is going wrong.

• by pskittle on 2/21/15, 3:25 PM

  I guess what i meant was, why is learning to build things difficult. I feel like im stuck all the time.

• by yosheeck on 2/21/15, 12:35 PM

  It is not really ! I found The Coding the simplest job ever :)

  This is the only thing which ALWAYS works the way being told: Whatever you put to your code, it will work exactly the way you phrase it ! (this doesn't mean - the way you expect)