From 8a8df4d023d3685553350eec4ff1f5d92a9c7e91 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Craig Maloney Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 21:24:09 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] Working on how to ask for help. --- chapter07.md | 4 ++++ 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+) diff --git a/chapter07.md b/chapter07.md index 682b336..5b2e54b 100644 --- a/chapter07.md +++ b/chapter07.md @@ -116,6 +116,10 @@ You will experience periods of burnout in your programming career. Things will c ### FIXME +One of the most challenging aspects of programming that I've seen is in reaching out and asking others for help. We tend to avoid it because we don't want to seem foolish or less of a capable programmer. We might have had instances where we've asked for help only to be told that we didn't do enough research into the issue we're having. It's difficult for us to admit that we need to rely on others for support. Often there's the feeling that asking questions or asking for help is a sign of weakness. If we can't do everything on our own then perhaps we're unworthy of being considered a programmer. We begin to attack our knowledge and consider ourselves a fraud for needing external support. Or we worry that we'll become a burden for asking for so much help when we struggle. + +This can also be magnified if you've had issues with learning in the past or are suffering from PTSD, chronic fatigue, or any number of physical, mental, or emotional constraints. + ## Giving up Programmers don't like to think about giving up. We work on machines that have so many possibilities that we feel we should be able to make anything work on them. But sometimes we don't want to see those possibilities. Sometimes we look at the list of things we should be learning and wonder if it's all worth the effort. We look at lists of job prospects for our set of skills and see that the only fit for those skills is nothing but work that we find meaningless. People learning to program ask us what it's like to be a programmer and we wonder if it's OK to tell them that we're not happy with our decision and crush their dreams this early in their careers. The joy that sustained us into learning the craft disappears and we're left wondering if we will ever cultivate that feeling again. -- 2.31.1