I'm super squeamish about asking for help from people I know in real life. I'd be way more comfortable working with a comrade of basically any stripe. I don't care if you know more or less than me - teaching is beneficial, being taught is beneficial.

Done enough front end to know I hate it, but I'll share what I know.

Where I'm at experience wise:

-Scratching the surface of back end (configured my own LAMP environment and have a local website with some basic PHP/JS/MySQL functions

-I've done 2/3 of the first ODIN Project (HTML/CSS)

-Completed some front-end online free "bootcamp" that was a pre-req for a paid java bootcamp I didn't pursue

-Getting somewhat savvy with git/github, IDEs, and very comfortable with operational logic and scoping from modding games

-Lots of IT experience, so I never really have configuration/interfacing issues

-finished the w3schools "webdev" track (JS/HTML/CSS/PHP/SQL) along with a few other

Where I'm at mentally:

-Haven't touched my PHP project in months

-Feel like I forgot everything I learned

-Feel like a fraud and like I probably have undiagnosed ADHD

-Constantly tempted to give up and dive into something even less likely to turn my life around

-Alienated from my friends who don't really understand why I'm struggling to get economic traction

The reason I'm interested in paired learning is because I believe in other people more than in myself - I struggle to invest in myself, working as a team on things always gives me limitless energy. If I work alone I typically will finish a step of the project I'm working on and then retreat away from the project rather than pushing it further continuously. Kinda just need a person that goes "okay next we need to..." and when they don't say that I say it, rinse repeat. That doesn't mean we constantly work, I know time is precious; it just means there is no official "hiatus".

  • AHopeOnceMore [he/him]B
    ·
    2 years ago

    Happy to help any way I can, comrade. I'm pretty experienced in CS and full stack and DevOps yada yada yada.

    Some quick responses to some of the things you mention:

    • imposter syndrome is normal. It's everywhere. Everyone has it. It's bullshit. Software is a trade and you get better at a trade over time. You'll start out being good enough to do a lot of still useful things and get even better over time. Don't doubt your capacity or whether you're useful.

    • projects with others or with people using the output are the lifeblood of open source software development. It's okay to drop things nobody is using or that you are no longer interested in. Like some old php project (php is gross IMO, lol). Everybody does this, it's okay and fine.

    • Retention happens through repetition. If you keep building things, you'll keep using similar patterns and learning new ones. It's okay and normal to forget things if you only do them 1-3 times.

    • Economic traction means getting paid to do software stuff, IMO. You'll get that once you have relevant skills and experience. Depending on your locale, without a degree in CS you'll want to focus on getting experience, which means either taking on group projects that you can put into a portfolio (like making a cool and impactful thing in a local coding group) or getting underpaid for a while to build websites and such. It's a very stupid system that prioritizes proofs of computation time maxima over knowing how to actually build a website. But once you get past that first hurdle of getting paid to do software, many opportunities open up.

    I wouldn't be a pair learner because I already know this stuff, but I'm happy to suggest direction and check in with you as you go! Please feel free to DM me. For infosec purposes I'm also happy to make a new account and do DMs through that.

    Really please feel free to DM me about whatever. My point about infosec is for your benefit of you want to separate your current account for want reason.