DEV Community: Jobert Manosca

Impostor Syndrome - My Two Pennies

Jobert Manosca — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 03:03:17 +0000

I would like to start off by saying that I'm no expert on the human psyche so you should take everything I say with a grain of salt. (As you should when reading anything on the internet.)
However, I would still like to share with you my own experiences with it to remind you all that you are not alone in feeling this way.

It’s perfectly natural for people to think they’re not good enough, after all people have a desire for growth. When we’re stagnant it feels like we’ve lost control. “But control is just an illusion” and whatnot. Well I don’t know if I can speak for anyone else but illusion or not, I think we would much prefer to feel like we have some control over lives right? Not being in control is just outright depressing.

Where does this feeling come from?

I’m under the impression that people often compare themselves to their peers to gauge their level of skill and accomplishments. This could be a good thing if it inspires some healthy competition among yourselves, pushing each other to greater limits. It becomes a bad thing if you’re just constantly knocking yourself down because the gap between you and the person you’re comparing yourself to is quite far in between. This is one of the biggest demotivators especially for beginners when comparing themselves to someone at a professional level. Rather than taking everything in small digestible steps they look at the long never-ending journey of their chosen craft.

Well let me tell you something:
It probably won’t look much different once you catch up to the person you’re idolizing because chances are, if they’re truly passionate about what they’re doing, they still feel that they can improve much more.

In the end everyone desires to improve themselves and are too impatient when it comes to arriving at the destination they desire. I had quite an insightful conversation with my friend recently and he lifted my mood by telling me I’m an exceptional person. He was quite upset at me and people who can do amazing things and still think so little of ourselves when others can’t even achieve what we can because we’re too busy comparing ourselves to “masters”.

You really shouldn’t be comparing yourself to others but rather you should compare you to your past self. Every time you feel like you haven’t really come that far in whatever you’re practicing, you should ask yourself, “Would I have been able to do this 2 weeks ago? A month ago?”

Let’s wrap this up

You only feel like you don’t belong amongst your peers because you’re comparing yourself to them and you think too little of your skill. You should compare yourself to yourself and you will realize that you’ve actually accomplished a lot. I’ve had people who come from non-technical backgrounds point out mistakes in my code and I’ve come to realize that we’re equals in this craft despite my years of study prior to this vs their 1 1/2 months. If anyone should feel like an impostor, it should be me!

All jokes aside, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past, you can still achieve your goals if you just pour your heart into it! Don't give up and believe in yourself.

Recursion is actually easy!

Jobert Manosca — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 04:42:29 +0000

It has come to my attention that the concept of recursion is a topic that some may find difficulty in learning. I believe that this is only because it is usually taught in some weird way using some mathematics that are beyond what we would use in our daily lives. Fibonacci numbers? Factorials? I don't think I even knew what those were and I took engineering for a year!(I probably would've been a bad engineer if I stuck with it.)

REJOICE! I shall try to teach it in a way so that even the mathematically inept, such as myself, can understand. I promise you that your brain doesn't actually need to be that big to understand what it's doing.

What is recursion?

Let's start with finding out what recursion is.
Recursion, in the most simplest of words, is when you use a function that calls itself until something tells it to stop. That's it. So why are examples out there making you get a PhD in Math to understand what they're doing?

Here's some pseudo code I use as a template when building a recursive function:

function recursion() {

    if(your stop condition is met) {
        stop running this function
    }

    do some stuff

    // call the function again
    recursion()
}

So let's actually build a recursive function! The language of choice here is JavaScript but the concept is the same for any language. Here we're not gonna use any fancy math terms and whatnot. This example will just be a function that counts down from the number we pass to it. I'm hoping everyone knows what I'm talking about when I say "count down".

JavaScript Example:


// This function will count down to 1 starting from the number we give it.
function countdown(number) {

    // The Stop Condition:
    // Stop the recursion when the number reaches 0
    if(number === 0) {
        return;
    }

    // Task to do:
    // Print out the current iteration of number
    console.log(number);

    // Call Again:
    // Call the function again with a minor change to the argument 
    // that will eventually lead the recursion to the stop condition
    countdown(number - 1);
}

Now let's open up our console and call the method. I passed in 10.
The output should look like this:

As you can see it's not a difficult concept to learn at all!

Recursion is indeed a powerful tool but it is not without its fair share of problems. Similar to a loop, if you do not properly set up your stop condition you will keep running that set of code. HOWEVER, unlike a loop, it will usually reach the limit of your call stack and give you an error depending on the browser or language you're using.

Chrome will say "Maximum call stack size exceeded"
Firefox will say "InternalError: too much recursion"
Edge will say "Out of stack space"

If it doesn't, then something else has gone horribly wrong. The stack is a whole other topic on its own and I suggest looking it up after if you don't already know about it.

Generally speaking, a countdown is most likely better implemented with a for loop but it's a good way in my opinion to get started with learning recursion. Since it's a waste to use recursion on simple things like countdowns let's talk about the more practical uses of recursion.

When Should We Use it?

From my own experiences with recursion, I'd say it's best used when you need to repetitively run a set of code but are unsure of when exactly you need to stop. Here are two algorithms as examples of what I mean along with guides by Free Code Camp that give a great breakdown of how the algorithms work.

Flood Fill
Merge Sort
(The plain English of what this does is between 2 math death blocks.)

Let's Wrap it up

I hope I managed to help some people get a better understanding of how to use recursion. Let's stay away from the crazy math stuff. When you're learning recursion for the first time, do it with a countdown so it's easier to tell if you're messing it up. That's all for now, folks. Thanks for reading!

Why I Took a Dip in Programming

Jobert Manosca — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 04:55:11 +0000

I've always had an interest in the sciences and technology ever since I was but a wee lad, thus I put my efforts towards becoming an engineer. This is what my parents recommended after all, so I went for it. I can't speak for all the youngsters out there but when I was like 10 years-old I treated my parents' words as absolute. "Get a good job and make lots of money!", they said as if saying to have lots of money is to be successful. What does it mean to be successful anyway? Well the answer to that question should be addressed some other time. Right now I'll just talk about how I came to the decision to become a programmer.

My Post-Secondary Switch
When I got accepted into a university to study Electrical Engineering I was ecstatic but after a year I began to doubt myself. "Am I really doing the right thing?" was a question that lingered in the back of my head every single day. I was also struggling with the fact that a lot of money went into this program for me to study and I didn't want to look like a quitter to my friends and family. It was around this time that I came across a YouTuber by the name of TheTolhe and this person changed my life. Through watching his videos I learned that he is a game developer and during his free time he would make videos for YouTube. I kid you not I wanted to live Tolhe's life so bad since gaming had always been something I was passionate about. This was the little push I required to just do what I truly wanted and pursue a career in programming video games.

Bearing Bad News
Luckily for me, when I told my family they were very supportive of my decision and I actually felt so silly for thinking the worst. I thought that my relationship with my parents would take a serious hit but instead they were willing to help me regardless of the journey I decided to take since all they really cared about is my happiness. Shortly after I told everyone how I felt about my studies, I applied for a game development program at Humber College to begin walking a long road towards becoming a game programmer.

Let's Wrap it up
And there you have it, folks! My long winded story of how I decided to become a programmer. A major milestone decision based solely on a "childish" desire to make games for people. Between working, studying, gaming, and anime, I can't really find the time to watch Tolhe's channel. Though I haven't been watching much of Tolhe these days, I will always bring him up when asked about why I decided to become a programmer. If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read this.