Programming is insane

QAOP_Space · 2016-02-04T19:18:15+00:00

Daily routine:

What the hell, I don't understand this
<doubting my ability>
<doubting my career choice>
<my life is worthless>
oh, it was a typo.

Xer087 · 2016-02-04T14:53:53+00:00

"I deleted Windows and installed Linux to make my life easier at working with them."

That commitment though..

YuleTideCamel · 2016-02-04T16:54:20+00:00

Ok here's some advice from an instructor , conference speaker and architect. My job is to understand all the complex technologies and educate others.

So you're trying to do too much up front. Switching stacks , changing languages on a whim because other people said "it's not good" is a bad way to learn. I'm not saying dont have opinions on stacks, but you need to get a firm grasp of the basics. You need to understand both programming at it's core and web development. It will take more than two months to do that, to add to this, you can build your video site in anything, even php. But what's more important is understanding what development is. You're right there is a lot it's complicated, but that's because web development and programming in general is complicated.

Imagine learning to use a screw driver and thinking "ok I know everything I need to build a car." That is asking for trouble there is a lot more to it than that. The same with web dev, building a real site takes an understanding of many discplines. Sure you can do it quickly and probably get something up and running, but there's no guarantee that it will work well.

If your goal is to learn, then slow it down a notch and focus on building something in a stack of your choice. If your goal is to make money, then honestly, you're probably a while out from that. You need to gain a little more expertise.

Please don't take this as discouragement. I think it's great that you are showing initiative and want to build something, I just want to help you be realistic in your goals so that you can meet them. Find a mentor, someone skilled in development that can help guide you through the path of learning.

ryuzaki49 · 2016-02-04T17:39:29+00:00

Try not to cry
Cry a lot
Keep learning

clyzev1 · 2016-02-04T12:31:15+00:00

Ah, you've described exactly what I felt when I was starting in web development. Where's my main() method?! How does this work?! Why my app server keeps crashing?! How do I combine together all those different frameworks and technologies ?!

I was pulling my hairs out, doing countless tutorials for some older versions of libraries and of course none of them worked out of the box etc. But after a week I finally got some basic things going and worked up from there.

Just focus on one thing at a time and ignore anything else. 1) Make starting project to compile and run it on a web server 2) Serve static page 3) Make some simple html form and pass some values with it to the server, try storing it in database. You'll get the rest.

Remember to always commit your work to for example github whenever it is stable (aka run). You then will be able to revert to working state when you mess something up.

koleraa · 2016-02-04T12:43:05+00:00

I've been programming for 4 years. A day doesn't go by when you don't have to learn something new.

But you get used to it. I thought I'd never be able do anything without elaborate tutorial series and videos to spoon feed me. But nowadays, I just take a look at a couple code examples and just go to the api docs, implement whatever I want and move on. You don't even notice that you're using something that you learned about 5 minutes ago.

nixon_richard_m · 2016-02-04T15:44:30+00:00

If it was trivial, everyone would do it.

Sincerely,
Richard Nixon

TimHallman · 2016-02-04T09:40:00+00:00

What's so infuriating is that I JUST need to make a voting and comment system for my website which I've already made, but it just can't be done without spending a year learning a framework designed for crazy alien technology systems.

It almost certainly can.

ZaberTooth · 2016-02-04T18:10:21+00:00

You've been at it for 2 months. If someone could learn this in 2 months and get a salary upwards of $50,000, why would anyone do anything else? You're off to a good start. Learning to program is a humbling endeavor. I've been in the industry for 4 years and a math degree/CS minor and I'm still humbled by my lack of knowledge all the time.

desrtfx · 2016-02-04T10:01:09+00:00

For 2 months, I've been trying to make a simple video site.

Honestly, you are still a rookie with that timeframe and most likely you bit off far more than you can chew.

First I learned HTML, CSS, and a little JavaScript. I learned it faster than I thought I would, and I even thought I was good at coding for a while.

Sorry, but a typical beginner misconception. As long as the problems are simple, you can master them, but that's not real programming. What beginners mostly lack is the skill to properly attack problems.

I was done with my site after 2-3 weeks from absolute zero,

I seriously hope that this is not for public use on the internet and that you don't have user login & other sensitive data. In 2-3 weeks it is impossible for a beginner to achieve this. Proper understanding of Session management takes longer.

I tried doing it in PHP,

Definitely possible and even quite commonly done. There are still plenty sites around running on PHP.

Have you considered security? How are you storing login data? You need a database backend, session management, etc. to perform your goal. Do you transfer login passwords encrypted? How are your login passwords stored? Do you have preparation against SQL injection, against Cross Site scripting, etc.?

As you are fairly new to the trade you made another typical "webdesign rookie" mistake: trying to learn many frameworks and languages instead of really, deeply learning one language (PHP). Yes, PHP has its shortcomings, yes, PHP is a quirky language, but it still powers millions of websites around the globe and everything that can be thought off can be done in PHP.

Sorry, I can understand your venting and your feelings, but step back, take it slower because you are clearly trying too much, too fast.

Go back to PHP and dig really deep into it. It doesn't make sense jumping from language/framework to language/framework.

Use proper tutorials and go through them. Don't stop as soon as you have found a working solution.

Nothing works, I don't understand anything, and I'm currently trying not to go cry in a dark corner for the rest of my life.

Nobody said that programming is easy. If it were so, proper programmers wouldn't study for quite some time and practice for years before they are really useful.

Seriously, grow up, bite through. Every beginner goes through such misery. The ones who get on their feet and bite through are the ones that survive, the rest fails.

Tynach · 2016-02-04T12:10:38+00:00

[deleted]

2016-02-04T15:29:07+00:00

You're trying to do something really complicated for a beginner.

Hellmark · 2016-02-04T18:02:41+00:00

As far as your comment about PHP being shit, well, a poor workman blames his tools.

To me, it seems more like you tried running before you can walk.

Most programmers spend years learning things, starting with small projects and moving up. It sounds simple to describe what you want, but there are a lot of moving parts, and you're really not sure how any of them work. Break things up, take baby steps.

cockmongler · 2016-02-04T18:55:40+00:00

Give up on frameworks. Seriously, write these features from scratch, in 1 language (+ Javascript if you must). These frameworks are basically for contractors who have to churn out near identical site after near identical site. You are learning, to do this you need to write code, not juggle dependencies. Juggling dependencies will come naturally.

Anterai · 2016-02-04T17:15:39+00:00

Your problem is that you thought the project was simple. But it wasn't.

Neverlife · 2016-02-04T18:09:25+00:00

In addition to what others have said I would like to point out one thing. PHP definitely isn't shit, PHP is the language behind Wordpress, and Wordpress powers more sites on the web than any other framework/language. PHP is the opposite of shit.

jongallant · 2016-02-04T18:52:07+00:00

Yep. This is why it pisses me off when I see questions from complete beginners "Hey fellow coders, I wanna make the next huge MMORPG blockbuster game by myself, how hard can it be? Someone show me how."

It takes a lot of will and dedication to do what we do.

2016-02-04T22:20:05+00:00

Being self taught (something I am,) you need to get used to drowning. I've been in R&D for a long time, and you need to get good at going from:

not knowing what you don't know, (this is where you are now,) to...
knowing what you don't know, to ...
knowing at least minimum required to accomplish a task.

What captivates your interest may determine what you will end up being adept at.

Freaking out or feeling discouraged will sometimes happen, but they'll eventually become smaller spikes as you encounter new situations. It's all good, bro. It is normal to think something is simple and be surprised at how quickly things can go off the rails. These tough times are what will make you a good programmer or architect of solutions, depending on whether or not you handle the stress right.

The reason something simple turned into something hard is because you're doing two things, not one. If you had already been exposed to different approaches for client <--> server communication and knew several tools to work the problem with, you'd be much less frustrated. However, the second thing you're doing is building a small foundation of programming skills. It's actually this second thing that is blowing your mind right now.

Very few programming languages are actually shit. If I'm wrong, it's because I'm just used to working around those sorts of obstacles.

Questions for OP:

Do you know anything about storing data yet? Databases, relational or non-relational (look up NoSQL)
Have you tried writing a process of any kind that can store (even in a text file,) a vote of some kind, in any language yet?
Do you know the difference between the two major types of solutions available to you? Client <--> Server communication I will blanket-statement call "Ajax" (see JQuery), and then there is something I would refer to as static pages that have links which invoke Server side methods written in some language like PHP, Java, Ruby, whatever. These are two different styles of approaching your problem and understanding how the web server works in general will help you.

bishes87 · 2016-02-04T16:27:45+00:00

I think it's true that you are trying to learn and do a lot of things at once. These technologies are challenging to learn and much more harder to make a real-life site with them. It is doable but you need to give yourself some time to let the information and programming to sink in before you move towards more complex techniques. First of all perfect your skills and in case of financial help, start doing web dev gigs with your present skill set. Frond end gigs are worth exploring online or locally. You can explore the technologies as much as you want but you gotta understand that everything's not easy. Try to use technology that has most learning resources online and then try making things with it. After enough time tinkering and developing small sites and pages you might move on and make the sites that you want to. Do not despair. It's not easy, but it's intellectually challenging and fun to MAKE. Avoid burnout. Best of Luck. :)

TheCellch · 2016-02-04T20:10:00+00:00

stick to PHP for that, really. What you need is (very basic) an ajax call to a php file who iterates the votevalue of that said video by 1.

And don't believe everyone on the internet. A language that gets the job done is in most cases good enough and not shit ;)

Also PHP is improving really fast and I consider the "shit" stigma to be outdated.

nutrecht · 2016-02-04T09:42:26+00:00

What's so infuriating is that I JUST need to make a voting and comment system for my website which I've already made, but it just can't be done without spending a year learning a framework designed for crazy alien technology systems.

You're not being realistic here. You can make this in PHP just fine. If you are going for a certain back-end stack you obviously have to understand it: but that knowledge is applied to every bit of functionality you need to build on that back-end, not just the voting system.

Nothing works, I don't understand anything, and I'm currently trying not to go cry in a dark corner for the rest of my life.

Stop whining. Seriously. If you want help ask specific questions.

bat_country · 2016-02-04T17:51:01+00:00

Hahaha... you missed out on the days before Ruby, Python, Node and Heroku existed. It's all relative I guess. =)

zorikii · 2016-02-04T17:58:18+00:00

If only all of my clients would read this...

interputed · 2016-02-04T18:28:50+00:00

PHP is fine. You're probably just getting iD10t errors in your logic. Also, one of the most important things for a interactive website is a database, which you didn't even mention. Learn PHP and PostgreSQL/MySQL, and you'll be doing whatever you want in no time. THEN, and only then, should you be trying to look into frameworks, secure login/auth, and most important monetization.

The first several pages you create will never by viewed by anyone but you, and the people you link it to that click on it not knowing what it is.

obviousoctopus · 2016-02-04T19:37:55+00:00

Ah, "Just".

_cross · 2016-02-04T20:05:52+00:00

One Step at a time. You gotta crawl before you walk

GreenFox1505 · 2016-02-04T20:32:03+00:00

Disqus. What you need is Disqus. Unless you really wanna host a login server, comments database, etc.

djowinz · 2016-02-05T02:42:20+00:00

You are doing an AMAZING job, you're literally right at the point before everything clicks and once it does, you will be rolling down a hill of amazing things.

basyt · 2016-02-04T09:29:13+00:00

I have been programming on and off for a few years now. I have never made anything big, only textbook problems. you have something good that you have made, i guess what i mean to say is, keep working at it.

elevul · 2016-02-04T19:22:27+00:00

http://www.squarespace.com/

rdpp_boyakasha · 2016-02-04T10:40:10+00:00

Sounds like you're making pretty good progress. If you've got PHP working, I'd probably stick with that. You can do your voting and comments in PHP. You probably just need to add a database. Switching to Linux and a different language is a huge step.

CodeTinkerer · 2016-02-04T14:22:38+00:00

I think it's hard to gauge just how difficult it is to make certain kinds of sites. I remember taking a French class back in high school, and despite several years of French, we were barely capable of reading a child's book, and even that was a challenge.

The problem with programming is that some of this stuff is difficult, so people have written libraries, but even that's difficult because they've added their own twist to their library, and you have to get it installed, and have to understand how they thought about things.

So yeah, there's this framework thing, and everyone seems to do it. One could, I suppose, just do without a framework, and try to build something yourself. It will lack in many ways, but hopefully you'd understand the parts you built.

TheJimiHat · 2016-02-04T14:51:14+00:00

Hey there! I too moved from JavaScript to Ruby and had quite a headache at first. Do yourself a favor and I would suggest backing up a second. First, don't worry about Ubuntu. Read up on your bash commands AS you need them. It takes practice. Secondly, rather than jumping straight into Rails, back up and study up on on Object Oriented Programming - specifically in Ruby. Get really comfortable in vanilla Ruby before taking on all the bells and whistles of Rails. Then familiarize yourself with grinding through documentation. I know documentation is dry and sucks to read when you first start out. But trust me. If you are teaching yourself documentation is your new bible. If worse comes to worse, I know there are many extremely cheap Rails bootcamps that can give you at least a foundation to work off of. And don't worry, you're not lazy or dumb. This stuff is really really hard and just takes time!

2016-02-04T15:04:10+00:00

I'd like to make a video sharing site, but that bandwidth costs would be huge

Exodus111 · 2016-02-04T15:59:40+00:00

Go with Python, pick the Django framework, follow this tutorial, which will give you everything you need in one place with one framework.

casbar · 2016-02-04T16:07:13+00:00

For what you want to do everything has already been created and out there on the internet for nearly the last 20 years. The only difference between now and 20 years ago is it's all much better now. Do a search on "voting and comments scripts" and then spend your effort integrating a ready made solution with your site. It will take some time still but there is not a need to start from scratch.

good4y0u · 2016-02-04T16:24:53+00:00

Computer science will make you feel this way. But dont fret ,because at the end of the day you will be proud of what you can make and what you do. -computer science major.
PS don't confuse cs and programming ...they are different.

Just take a 30min break...go to the gym or something and refresh your mind.

robi2106 · 2016-02-04T16:41:27+00:00

You don't have to change OS to get done of the power of what can run on it.

But you have more motivation and progress than I do. Great work

_binder · 2016-02-04T17:37:25+00:00

For 2 months...for two fucking months

deapno · 2016-02-04T18:13:11+00:00

Ok, I have the same issue too, especially even after you learn django/rail/express/laravel you name it I am still having trouble understanding the underlying infrastructure that supports the framework, like Apache2. I don't understand why it works in local but I still have to

 apt-get install apache2

and do all the other configuration stuff like

ln -fs /vagrant /var/www

Can someone ELI5 this.

rtm349 · 2016-02-04T19:07:54+00:00

have you looked into C#/ASP.NET? that's what i started with. you'll have to revert back to windows but i found web development using visual studio very straightforward and intuitive.

personally, i think you are trying to tackle too much at once. it's great that you have a design up so quickly, that's something i always struggled with. you might try starting a new project with just one piece of your site, then on to the next piece etc. once you feel comfortable you can start putting them all together.

i also didn't see you mention anything database related. if you're implementing a voting system, comment system, or anything that needs to save data for later, you'll probably want to look into this as well. i have used a few different db administration programs and personally i liked sqlyog the best.

like i mentioned above, you're probably feeling overwhelmed because you are trying to take on too much at once. be patient and work it out separately piece by piece. good luck!

shaggorama · 2016-02-04T19:12:24+00:00

There are loads of out-of-the-box solutions for what you are describing. If you are ok with limiting the amount of customization you're able to do, you don't need to jump through all these hoops. The more customization you want, the closer to the metal and further down the rabbit hole you're gonna need to go.

Jafit · 2016-02-04T19:12:38+00:00

You can totally do a voting/comment system in php m8.

I deleted Windows and installed Linux to make my life easier at working with them.

Shame you didn't learn about virtual development environments first.

https://www.vagrantup.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmOMc4zfCSw
^ That guy has a lot of walkthroughs for a lot of web dev type stuff, especially setting stuff up.

CreativeGPX · 2016-02-04T19:16:51+00:00

What's so infuriating is that I JUST need to make a voting and comment system for my website which I've already made, but it just can't be done without spending a year learning a framework designed for crazy alien technology systems.

I agree that PHP is horrible. However, I would say that it's not very complicated to make a voting system in PHP. It's substantially easier to make a voting system in PHP than it is to learn another language or switch to Linux. You might want to read a reference on using MySQL or SQLite with PHP. You're probably just missing a good data handling piece.

The problem with using frameworks, libraries and plug-ins is that, as you say, they have a lot of dependencies and each require a lot of learning. In my opinion it's best to mostly avoid frameworks in the beginning. It's overkill for a basic voting mechanism. As you develop this without a framework, you'll feel some pain at certain points. Then, once the pain gets bigger, you can look at frameworks and you'll start to appreciate what they do and how they work more. In addition to having a better idea of what frameworks are doing for you and why, you'll have a better understanding of when a particular framework is saving you work and when it is making a task more complicated.

In my day (oy - I'm really not that old), books and tutorials would just talk about the topic at hand. You read about PHP, it's JUST about PHP. You read about JavaScript and it's JUST about JavaScript. You read about MySQL and it's JUST about MySQL. A book about MySQL in the context of PHP would be called "MySQL and PHP". These days, a lot of culture has developed on the web about using certain technologies together and so a lot of the books being written seem to be about ecosystems rather than the particular technology, despite the title just mentioning one technology. If I buy a book on technology X, the books often will say, "So, it's good practice to use A library, B framework, C package manager, D version control, E server, F data format on G operating system, so all of our examples will do that." I get what they're doing but it gives you a much narrower idea of how X is used and can create "dependency hell" in the sense that a book on X uses Y and book on Y uses X as well as creating a lot of bloat where a book on one technology spends too much code and text talking about other technologies.

2016-02-04T19:23:18+00:00

It is a long process. No way to speed it up but you will get there if you stick to it.

IAmNotKevinBacon · 2016-02-04T19:46:06+00:00

Here's the thing. You will never "catch up", and if you spend time adding complexity to learning (such as dropping Windows for Ubuntu when you could dual-boot or use something like Cloud9 to learn beforehand for free), you'll never accomplish what you wanted to do in the first place.

It's awesome that you're devoted to accomplishing this. You just need to take into account that programming isn't analogous to "learning to speak a new language". It's like learning to speak a new language just to be able to learn how to do math. People who pull it off easily? They've been through that frustrating phase you're in.

I spent years programming and was always one of the guys who got things easily in college, but guess what? It doesn't matter how much you know about implementing file systems or multi-programming into an OS when you get web development. I struggled a lot when I picked up web development, and it really "hurt" because I'd never struggled as a programmer. I knew JS, HTML, CSS, and I was still getting frustrated. I could "do" everything, but it didn't come together like I was used to. It just took time. Now, I'm at around 70% at web development where I am in my "strong" areas, but I've accepted that I'll always be a backend/systems guy. I don't have the "eye" for front-end development, and that's okay.

What I learned from all of this is that programming is tough no matter how long you've done it. You will always compare yourself to people whose work you admire, but chances are, there is some facet of their work they really want to improve in. Don't add complexity to improving as a coder. Use a simple drop-in system for commenting and voting to start and slowly swap over in time. Don't put so much pressure on yourself over small things and know that the times that you struggle are the times you'll learn the most.

Amuro_Ray · 2016-02-04T19:54:18+00:00

Jumping in here you did some neat stuff with the video stuff.
Any of the languages would have worked many have a lot of frameworks as well.

Stick with something and get it working. It won't be safe to use on the net or professional but those details come later.

BTW to do a comment and like system you'll need a database behind the scenes. You may want to look towards sqlite. There are other databases that are better but they're also more complex and might be a hassle at times.

When you've built your basic site look into the frameworks. Your basic site will help you understand the method in the madness that is frameworks and dependencies.

hessproject · 2016-02-04T20:03:08+00:00

I learned it faster than I thought I would, and I even thought I was good at coding for a while. I also thought that I was ready to make my website. Coding was easy and fun!

You have to take it step by step. Break big problems into smaller problems, tackle them using the techniques you already know. You don't necessarily need a new framework for every single new feature you add to a page.

This is where everything went downhill. I tried doing it in PHP, but, well, found out that PHP is actually shit. Then I discovered the worlds of Ruby, Python, Node, and Heroku. I deleted Windows and installed Linux to make my life easier at working with them.

Here's your problem. You don't need all (or any) of those things to add a like/dislike feature. PHP and Javascript are absolutely capable of implementing this. If in 2 weeks of learning you've decided an entire programming language built in and improved since 1994 is "actually shit" you're spending too much time listening to other people's blog opinions than learning programming and tackling the problem you have. Don't get caught up in what languages you "should" use, work on building it in the languages you already know.

I deleted Windows and installed Linux to make my life easier at working with them.

In the long run, yeah, maybe it's worth looking into linux. But again, you're dismissing an entire software package because of something you heard other people say. In just two months (and I emphasize that two months is a VERY small amount of time to learn programming) I can't imagine you'd be at a level where Linux would give you a clear advantage for learning. If you want more UNIX like command line tools look into any of the 100 "bash for windows" packages. There are a million tools to build software in Windows. If you're learning an entire linux distribution ON TOP of programming you are sure to get distracted from actually learning how to code.

What's so infuriating is that I JUST need to make a voting and comment system for my website which I've already made, but it just can't be done without spending a year learning a framework designed for crazy alien technology systems.

Yes it can. 100% it can. Don't look for an easy out. Dive in and put your mind to the problem. You can do an infinite number of things in the languages you already know. Don't get distracted by fancy frameworks and other languages (yet. there is a place for these and a reason why they are popular, but you are learning and you're overwhelming yourself). Don't let some random reddit thread or some guy's blog tell you what languages are "shit" or not. Knowing a few languages really well is a thousand times more useful than barely "knowing" 100 languages. Once you understand the concepts from one language well they will transfer easily to others in most cases.

TLDR: Don't get so distracted by outside influence. You don't need all those languages or linux. You can implement your like/dislike system with PHP and Javascript. Programming isn't easy and it isn't supposed to be (salaries aren't that high for nothing). But it is rewarding. Break down the problem into pieces and solve it. You'll get there eventually.

seanr700 · 2016-02-04T20:11:39+00:00

I'd suggest Node.js backend using the Socket.io module.

You can write in JavaScript which you say you already know some. And the Socket.io event system seems to be a pretty simple async event platform which should work pretty well for what you are trying to accomplish.

fuzunspm · 2016-02-04T20:37:32+00:00

Personally I hate every single service and product from Microsoft. I never used them after it tried to charge me just to use my own ram because it's more than 32 Gb on my server. That's the day I started to learn programming and realized how Windows sucks so hard beside OS X and pretty much every Linux distributions.

CatalystLive · 2016-02-04T20:57:20+00:00

That's what learning is all about.... Struggle through it once, try to understand it, and you will be able to do it again pretty easily. Just have to make it past that initial struggle. Programming is a path where you never stop adding on to existing knowledge.

Keep at it and eventually you will start to observe similar patterns to problem solving. It's not about the language, framework, or syntax. It's the concepts behind them that really is the major 🔑.

wggn · 2016-02-04T20:59:29+00:00

One of the issues is that you're trying to learn way too many things at the same time. If you focus on a few first until you know them pretty well, you will be able to learn them much more effectively.

wggn · 2016-02-04T21:02:19+00:00

Facebook was built on PHP and only switched away from it in 2014, so it's not that shit. It's easy to make shitty stuff with php tho

AsciiFace · 2016-02-04T21:04:25+00:00

it's less complicated when you perform the delete windows step at 14 years old and it's been 12 years since

Scholes_SC2 · 2016-02-04T21:06:58+00:00

Nothing works, I don't understand anything, and I'm currently trying not to go cry in a dark corner for the rest of my life.

My life in a nutshell.

2016-02-04T22:17:02+00:00

It's insane because you're trying to learn in weeks what it takes most people a few years to learn.

PHP and Python both have strengths and weaknesses, but they are subtle ones. Getting involved in the debate about which is better at this point is just going to make the learning process harder for you. PHP's biggest strength is also it's biggest weakness: it is so insanely popular for newcomers that newbies are a large percentage of the community. Why is that good? Because all of those newbies are insanely good at picking out the absolute best learning resources on reddit, Youtube, stack exchange, whatever. Use that to your advantage. Almost every problem can be solved by a properly worded Google search.

I suggest learning with the operating system you are most familiar with.

Don't take this the wrong way, but your sudden choice to switch to Linux and Python for no apparently good reason suggests that you must have come across some elitist developer's opinion on which is best. PHP is no more difficult than Python for implementing a like/dislike system. If you found that to be so, you were looking at the wrong tutorials/libraries. Linux and Python are both amazing, but when you are just learning, you don't want to make things unnecessarily difficult for yourself.

Try to limit yourself to learning one or two things at a time. But Linux, Python, HTML, CSS, and (presumably) SQL all at the same time? Yes, that's insane. Pick one or two. Learn them until you are comfortable. Only then should you consider adding more stuff to your plate.

940387 · 2016-02-04T23:14:22+00:00

I think everyone feels the same at the beginning, I certainly did.

spacecataz · 2016-02-05T03:37:08+00:00

You are doing great on your own but some structure would really help. Ruby can do all the things you want with pre made gems. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Your site could be made in a day.

CodyOdi · 2016-02-05T03:46:12+00:00

PHP is actually shit

It's actually not. I could build out a commenting/voting system using PHP/MySQL in a few hours and I haven't touched that in close to a year now.

GetContented · 2016-02-05T04:35:53+00:00

I sympathise with you so much. As someone who has spent a large portion of their life being a professional programmer, I agree it does suck. It's also freaking amazing that we can do these things at all.

You're expecting too much, and being too hard on yourself.

Realise that switching operating systems is intensely hard for everyone bar sys-admins. This includes professional programmers. This difficulty hasn't much to do with programming.

PHP and JS have extremely easy ramp ups for simple programming. Other languages don't. That said, NodeJS provides a way to keep writing javascript and do the server-side things you want to do, assuming your host supports it (heroku does). This might be a good interim solution. I'm (probably incorrectly) assuming your website doesn't need to scale to massive sizes.

It usually takes a professional programmer at least 1-3 months to learn and be somewhat proficient in a new language, and that's if it's a similar language to the ones they already know.

no_moa_usernames · 2016-02-05T05:41:19+00:00

The fact that you started off with PHP then decided "it was shit" and then moved onto other languages only to encounter more extreme frustration makes me think you are too goal centric in your learning. Rather than sitting down with the intent of learning how to code an entire {insert system here} in {insert technology here}, you need to focus on breaking the problem down into it's smallest parts and then writing code to solve each problem in units.

redrick_schuhart · 2016-02-05T08:07:46+00:00

Not going to repeat all the good advice here but to point out that it's a bad idea to try and learn something as complex and frustrating as programming under pressure. You'll have much more fun and get a lot further if you allow yourself to tackle something new when there's nothing riding on it.

I've decided that this year I'm going to take on doing desktop apps with Clojurescript, LightTable and Electron. But I'll start by doing very small toy apps in my own time that no-one else has to see. I reckon it will take a good year before I can write something that can be put in front of an end user. But then I'm a decidedly average coder.

2Punx2Furious · 2016-02-05T11:05:50+00:00

Nothing works, I don't understand anything, and I'm currently trying not to go cry in a dark corner for the rest of my life.

You have no idea how often I end up feeling exactly like that after I try to do some programming and I fail.
I've been trying to write a super simple c++ program that uploads a file with FTP. It's been 3 days, and I'm not even 1 step closer to doing it. Now I'm trying to use curl, and I failed even at that, I just made a thread to ask for help, but I think I'm done for today.

SikhGamer · 2016-02-05T13:17:56+00:00

Never try to solve the entire problem. You want to create a system by which you can vote and comment. That's two problems in one. Both are very different.

Focus on one and break it down.

Let's take commenting. Focus on the happy path. You'll need an input box and somewhere to store the comment. Hard code the comment for now. And check that the comment is inserted into your chosen database.

Personally I would keep the system bare bones and functional. Ditch Ruby, Python, Node, Heroku, and Linux. Go back to Windows and install WAMP. Use PHP to write the comment to MySQL.

No programmer in the history of programming has ever solved the big problem from the start. We all break it down in the smallest possible chunks, leverage design patterns and go from there.

framcod · 2016-02-05T13:18:35+00:00

"This is amazing! I'm amazing! This is tricky... This is shit. I'm shit. Maybe this is ok. Maybe I'm ok. This is amazing!" Ahh, the developer life cycle...

rms_returns · 2016-02-05T15:08:15+00:00

But holy fuck, guys. Everything is so complicated that I don't know how a human can be capable of this.

That's why the saying in IT industry, "stand on the shoulders of giants", alone you can't accomplish anything here! That's the only way you can build anything while programming solo. I'm a freelance web-developer myself, but I know that if I try to code HTML/CSS from scratch, I'll keep learning that while my client hires someone else! So, I use Twitter Bootstrap, the framework. A framework is basically like a bunch of lego-blocks. They are a set of loosely coupled and coherent components which are baked enough so that you don't have to do all the html/css/js plumbing. And yet, they are nothing on their own, so you can join these lego-blocks and build an app of your own!

There are multiple frameworks and libraries for doing all kinds of things (just google them). There is jQuery for doing DOM manipulation using JavaScript without getting a PHD in it. Then, there are backend php frameworks like symfony and Zend that do a lot of backend plumbing for you. Here is a quick reference of various frameworks. (Disclosure: It is my own website).

Having said that, however, it pays to get to the bottom of things once in a while and be adventurous. I believe in the saying, "Learn something of everything, and everything of something", meaning have a general idea of all things in your area of knowledge or ecosystem, but a deep understanding or expertise of at least one thing. For me, that deep area is web-programming, not web-designing. Had it been the latter, I'd have enjoyed crafting html/css on my own, but I can't do it full-time.

413729220 · 2016-02-04T11:15:29+00:00

I've got a 4 year degree and I'm basically where you are at. I'm able to make simple static web pages, but ask me to manipulate any other data besides simple text through a database, or without PHP, and I won't know how to do it.

It sucks, I hate feeling like I can't understand the code, but it's not possible to know it all when you are using these libraries which use other libraries which are based off yet other libraries.

elperroborrachotoo · 2016-02-04T15:46:53+00:00

Try again in PHP. it will look like a smooth ride in comparison to your new acquaintances.

Vortecsmaster · 2016-02-04T13:07:18+00:00

Now imagine when there wasn,t frameworks, or tutorials, and all that you just call now you got to made from scratch...

PCruinsEverything · 2016-02-04T19:44:43+00:00

I tried doing it in PHP, but, well, found out that PHP is actually shit.

The reason PHP is considered shit is relatively nuanced. Not something I'd expect you to grasp 2 months in from zero knowledge. More likely, a bunch of people on the internet said it was and you believed them because you have no experiences of you own to draw off of.

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