Programming is hard.

What if it doesn’t come naturally to you?

Image by Joshua Aragon on Unsplash

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There are a lot of aspiring developers here on Medium. There are a lot of expert software engineers, too.

If you’ve read some of the brilliant pieces about programming, you might have walked away feeling like you’re not cut out for this.

I want to set the record straight, because imposter syndrome is real:

1. Programming is hard for everyone.
2. It’s okay if it doesn’t come naturally to you.
3. You can and will be successful if you figure out how you learn.

Programming is hard for everyone.

I started “coding”¹ when I was young, and at the time, it did come naturally to me. Well, HTML came naturally to me. I didn’t venture into JavaScript or Ruby until my late 20s, and at that point, let’s just say it wasn’t intuitive.

There is not a single developer on this platform — or outside of this platform — who closes their eyes, writes perfect code before lunchtime, pats themselves on the back for a job well done, and lays down watching the money flow in.