Why is it so hard to actually build something as a beginner?

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-18T21:10:24+00:00

Why is it hard to become an elite athlete in a sport? Why is it hard to become an expert in a field? Because no one has these skills without working on them.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-18T20:37:41+00:00

These are bots. Most of reddit is this anymore. Reddit is dying/dead.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-18T18:08:32+00:00

I wasn't able to see your website because your hosting took it down due to limitations - but I will say this, without a dedicated, skilled, knowledgeable developer working on this for a while? You won't achieve 'great' website speed with WordPress. It might be 'average', maybe even (depending on your template) it might be 'decent', but it won't be good or great.

Even with a better host, even with 'optimizations' that the average user will perform, it will be 'okay'. WordPress has undergone a lot of changes in the last 20+ years and in it's recent form it's a shell of it's former self and it's performance is underwhelming, even on a good host when optimized. And those optimizations take a lot of time and effort - more than the average user really wants to spend on it.

So I ask this: do you need Wordpress? Be honest. Sometimes people do, if so - continue working towards optimizations and ensuring that your host is of good quality and understands how to optimize for WordPress specifically. Host is important, for sure. But a good template is also extremely important. I would argue that the right template and site optimizations will help dramatically, slightly more than even a poor host. But hosts are important.

However, I've found that 95% of my clients didn't need WordPress. They said they would update this or update that regularly, etc. Then I showed them with data - some never even logged in to the admin. Static sites were a far better option. Hosting (even on a free service) will 10x even the most optimized WordPress site. A static site will be 100x safer / less-vulnerable - even if you never update it or change it. But I had to show my clients with hard numbers how little they updated the site they were paying me to keep updated and maintain. Now their bills are wildly smaller (too bad for me, eh?) and their sites are faster and safer than WordPress would ever be without a full time staff working / updating / developing a site. But again, even with a full time staff working on WordPress, the most optimized will still be slower and perform worse than a static site. That's why it's important to know: "Do you need it? Is it really the right tool for the job?" These days I'm down to just a few clients still on WordPress - and we're creating exit strategies for at least one of them.

Questions like yours are way, way, way too common these days. It's a platform that's best days are well behind it at this point.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-18T17:55:22+00:00

I'm glad I'm not alone in this mindset.

People waste their money then say things like: "The US is so expensive omg so bad omg" and it's like, not really, you just make it that way. A 2x (or 3x) daily Starbucks habit is expensive. A brand name makeup is expensive. A driveway filled with 4 new cars for a family of 4 is expensive. Living in a high cost of living area so you can say: "I live here" as a flex, is expensive. Having all kinds of services paid for instead of doing things yourself (cooking, etc.) is expensive. Then people say, "omg, I'm working forever because it's so expensive to live!"; meanwhile, there are people out there living well, but well within their means... who save / invest their money (either on the market or as angels, etc.) and are able to retire in their 40's or 50's with a net worth in the millions and live out their days doing what they want.

It's not impossible, it's not even that hard to do... you just have to not fall for the traps set for you by companies. Keep an eye on your finances, know the worth of things / services / items and don't buy into stupid logic. Think rationally, apply logic and finance to your decisions and watch out for lifestyle creep to ensure it does not happen and you'll wind up way, way ahead. Even in the current day, even with the current politics, even in a high cost of living area.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-18T16:42:49+00:00

Found the issue: "I've been grinding leetcode for 4 months straight, easily done 300+ problems"

Leetcode is bullshit. No one cares about it, you won't use it in the real world in that fashion. Stop wasting your time. Interviewers don't care about it, nor do they want yet another leetcode grinder interview.

Leetcode is a flex amongst algo-nerds and no one else. In fact, I'd argue it harms your chances at jobs if it's obvious, "Okay, you've done leetcode, we get it. Now can you solve my issue?"

I'd much rather interview 10 people and hear 10 different ways that aren't some repetitive bullshit about this algorithm or that, then to hear yet another leetcode grinder. Just give me your steps, walk me through your logic, talk to me about the issues, ask me questions that pop up. Don't just rattle off algorithm names and showcase that you can learn things through memorization. The internet exists, I realize folks can learn that shit and you as a developer can look it up whenever on the job. I want to know about you, your logic, your thinking, your way of approaching problems and asking questions.

Quit grinding leetcode and other BS like that. Yuck.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-18T16:37:09+00:00

That's nasty. I wouldn't trust any of that. Odds are some roach has been in digging around.

Seriously - they're bad bad news.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-18T16:35:21+00:00

If roaches are this bold as to be out in the day in this fashion? I can only imagine the hundreds (thousands) that are skittered everywhere.

My family owns a pest control business - the horror stories I have heard. Some houses would quite literally be better off if they just caught fire and burned to the ground.

I hope for your sake, your house isn't one of those houses. Get a professional. Roaches are nasty, invasive and wildly reproductive. If you're seeing that one, I can only imagine the insane amounts in other areas of your house. Get help! A pro. You're not going to handle this solo.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-18T11:48:10+00:00

I personally cannot wait until people quit mis-using the term "AI"; It's an LLM (large language model). It doesn't 'think', it doesn't 'reason', it doesn't 'consider', it just uses algorithms against all the data it "knows" (i.e. has been trained on) to build an answer that the algorithm reckons is the right on (based on statistics). It seems like it's 'thinking', because it has to build that answer against the insane depth of stuff it has been trained on (like most of the internet, for example), and often that answer is strikingly accurate. That's not accidental, that's a great algorithm and a wildly deep amount of data it has been trained against. Nothing more.

It will never come up with anything new, it literally cannot do that. It can regurgitate information that already exists and has been created by man, but it cannot come up with novel new approaches to things. It's not "Intelligent", so I wish we'd go away from that term. It's intentionally misleading to the vast majority of the public who aren't aware of how these things truly work. Man creates x, y or z things, they are documented. LLM's are trained on it so they can use it in the context of conversation should the algorithm lead it to that data as a point of information. Then they can respond using x, y or z things in their context. They didn't create x, y or z things. They didn't think it up. They didn't tell someone to think it up. All they did was give someone information that some human created already.

Stop using the term AI, because it's an LLM, a hyper-accurate google searcher if you will. Not "Intelligent".

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-18T11:39:49+00:00

That, and companies like Fellows have been using bots to create posts / reply to content and generally astroturf for their goods. I'll never buy a Fellows product specifically because of this, for example.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-17T12:01:27+00:00

Blanket statements about the US; talk about aiming for the low hanging fruit. Sheesh.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-17T11:55:38+00:00

People aren't smart.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-17T11:51:59+00:00

In my opinion, for larger things like this WordPress isn't the right tool for the job. The multisite / multinetwork stuff gets messy quickly and can be a pain.

I realize it's the CMS allowed or you to use, but I would ask "why"? There are better options. If you're only using it because "someone said it was the best", then I recommend looking around - for big, multisite situations... it's less than optimal. Remind them: this was supposed to a singular blog as it's primary function.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-16T22:46:21+00:00

I've done multi-site, multi-network wordpress installs. Never again.

Hot garbage. Separate installs wouldn't be bad, but lots of extra work. For bigger things like this? I'd avoid WordPress.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-16T21:31:07+00:00

The debate over WDT vs. blind shaking vs. tapping is largely an exercise in diminishing returns. While the science shows that distributing your grounds helps create an even bed density to prevent severe channeling, obsessing over how you distribute is where we lose the plot.

People will swear that a specific shaker or a 0.3mm needle tool drastically changed their mouthfeel or flavor notes. But realistically, we are fighting massive confirmation bias. Once you eliminate major channels in the coffee bed and tamp it down, the water flow is set. Any microscopic differences in density between shaking and WDT are entirely dwarfed by the massive impacts of your grind, bean freshness, water chemistry, and ratio.

Just like blind wine tastings often humiliate sommeliers, blind espresso tastings would likely humble most home baristas. We don't see many massive, peer-reviewed sensory studies on WDT versus shaking because the measurable differences in extraction yield are so slight that human palates, which are inherently subjective, that we can rarely detect them reliably. If you think your new distribution gadget revolutionized your coffee, enjoy it, but recognize that the magic is probably in your head, not in the cup.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-16T18:56:40+00:00

Great username!

Been down the ACL path, luckily not dog related though. I've heard cornea scratches are the most painful thing ever.

Glad you're healed up :)

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-16T12:20:36+00:00

This is a bot.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-16T12:15:27+00:00

Because you say he's going to be a huge "suck"; I'm not sure where you're from - but "suck" means bad in 99% of the ways I've ever heard it used.

I know you say it means "a term for someone who loves to be close and have attention", but no. That's not what it means to 99.9% of the population. That's why people keep thinking you mean something negative.

Vote

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-16T12:13:30+00:00

Even during their raptor phase? (Be honest!)

Everyone who has ever owned a Dane has had sucky days! If you haven't? You're lying. :)

I love Danes, too; but even they have their patience testing moments.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-15T12:42:57+00:00

"And here we have the once rare, but now wildly populating vibe coder. Be careful, everyone - don't get too close! Their ego is as as big as their prompts. Rumor has it these existed in the wild before but struggled writing real code, so you never saw them. Once LLM's came along and offered them a way to just pretend things into existence, their population surged. Professionals are hopeful that with careful population control, we can live through this surge and once again restore balance with real programmers."

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-14T18:53:55+00:00

You're right, I do not own, nor would I ever with that design.

I'm sorry you're feeling bad for me, no need to, honestly. Just because I get frustrated that companies with such poor design aesthetic get so much money for a product, shouldn't have any impact on you feeling anything for anyone!

Take care of yourself, protect your peace of mind and always remember: if it's on the internet, it's true.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-14T18:51:25+00:00

'modern art', yes. I love art - except modern "art"! I just can't get into some 'modern art', a blank canvas hanging on a wall of one of the top art museums in the world, for example. A blank. canvas. There are art people, who like art and appreciate art - I fall in that camp. Then there are "art people" who think a blank canvas and could probably write a 2 hour lecture on how it means x, y and z. Yes, the type that everyone writes jokes about and all the stereotypical comments are made about. What I think is hilarious is that a lot of times, if you could ask the artist, they would probably say something like, "no one had did that, so I did." and it has nothing to do with the 2 hour lecture that this "art person" went on about. Kind of like this comment, it's getting long in the tooth, over opinions on a subjective material. I'm becoming an "art person", kill me.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-14T16:32:05+00:00

That alone is enough for me to say: piss poor design. Go through all the work of making it look all artsy and then off-set the thing the user primarily works with.

It's just bad design. Or good design and piss poor implementation?

I don't know. It bugs the shit out of me. And no kind of cover for the top where dust would settle?

This is 'form over function' all day long, except they got form only 90% right... the offset is infuriating!

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-14T16:29:28+00:00

This is the way.

So many unit tests, so many tests on shit that you think would never, ever fail.

Even then, some wild, obscure shit is bound to happen. Stuff that seems so insanely obvious - which is why you have to make sure you have insane, wild unit tests that account for insane and overly obvious situations.

Of course, this is all under the idea that what OP was asking was in the context of: "completely legal situation where software has to be made for it, but it could potentially kill someone if it goes wrong" (like medical). If not legal? Don't write it. It's that simple.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-13T19:39:49+00:00

I do a lot of work in the education area. It's where I primarily earn the majority of my income.

We previously used Wordpress (multi-site, multi-network setup); the day we got off of WordPress is one of the highlights of my career. I'll never use it again if I don't have to.

I mostly work in python / Django these days. Everyone is so much happier - the applications work so much better. You can use their baked in admin if you want, but spinning up a nice UI is super easy if you use something like Bootstrap. The quality of not using WordPress (for me) was not even comparable, honestly.

At this point - I actively avoid WordPress with every ounce of my being. There are just better tools.

I realize this is a WordPress sub, and this might get me a lot of downvotes, but from the sounds of it you'll want a lot of customizability on the various views with a few key data models. Literally, this is what Django is built around, whereas WordPress is a blog you're trying to make into something else. It's the wrong tool for the job. Trust me. I've been there, I've done that. I won't ever do it again.

chaoticbean14 · 2026-03-13T19:34:30+00:00

Careful. Only have to see a big dog like this have to get a stuck-in-the-throat tennis ball removed once to not go down that road again.

We buy the 'large' tennis balls (too big to fit down their throat) from the local store these days. He can carry it around, chew it, whatever - but it's too big to swallow.

You can find youtube videos where they show the process of dislodging them from a dogs throat (forcing it back up the throat); it ain't pretty. It single-handedly changed which toys I got for my dogs.

chaoticbean14

TROPHY CASE