We hear it all the time in tech.
Everyone starts somewhere. There are no stupid questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Keep learning.
And I agree with all of that.
But I've been wondering lately, are we actually as welcoming to beginners as we like to think we are?
Because telling someone they're welcome is one thing. Making them feel comfortable enough to actually participate is another.
The fear of asking a stupid question
When I first started learning to code, I was pretty nervous about asking questions.
I wasn't necessarily worried that someone would be outright mean to me. I was more worried about looking like I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
Which, to be fair, half the time I didn't. That's kind of the point of learning something new, right?
But that didn't stop me from overthinking things.
What if this is something I should already know? What if the answer is ridiculously obvious? What if someone wonders why I'm even trying to build things when I don't understand something so basic?
I can't imagine I'm the only person who's ever felt that way.
And apparently, I'm not.
I was looking through the 2026 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, and a couple of numbers caught my attention.
21.1% of respondents said they worry about being judged or criticized when participating in technical or professional communities.
Another 20.1% said they don't feel confident asking questions publicly.
Now, these numbers aren't specifically about beginners. They're from respondents more broadly, and I don't want to misrepresent that.
But still, roughly one in five people answering that question are worried about what others might think of them.
That's a pretty significant number of people who might have something to ask, share, or contribute but hesitate to do it.
It makes me wonder how many people are reading discussions, learning from everyone else, and never saying a word because they're afraid they'll look stupid.
You can correct someone without making them feel stupid
I want to be clear about something. I'm not suggesting we should stop correcting people or pretend everything everyone does is amazing.
That wouldn't help anybody learn.
I've made plenty of mistakes, written some questionable code, and probably approached things in ways that would make a more experienced developer scratch their head.
And I'm sure I'll continue doing all three.
But there's a difference between someone explaining why your approach might not be the best and someone making you feel stupid for trying it in the first place.
You can point someone toward documentation without the whole "Did you even bother reading the docs?" attitude.
You can disagree with someone without turning it into a contest over who knows more.
And you can give someone honest feedback without making them regret asking for it.
I think sometimes people forget how intimidating tech can be when you're new.
Things that seem completely obvious to someone who's been programming for ten years might be something a beginner has spent the last three hours trying to figure out.
And sure, maybe the answer really was in the documentation the whole time.
We've all been there.
But nobody learns everything overnight, and making someone feel stupid isn't going to help them learn any faster.
What about women in tech?
This is another part of the conversation I'm interested in.
I'm a woman who builds things and is still learning all the time, and I can genuinely say that a lot of my experiences in the tech community have been really positive.
Especially here on DEV.
I've met some wonderful people, received helpful feedback, and had other developers encourage me to keep building and sharing my projects.
And I appreciate that more than I probably say.
But getting comfortable enough to put my work out there in the first place? That took some courage.
I'm naturally someone who second-guesses herself, and when I first started sharing my projects, I was constantly wondering what people would think.
Was my code good enough? Was what I built even worth sharing? Would more experienced developers look at it and wonder why I was so excited about something they could probably throw together in an afternoon?
Looking back, I probably worried about those things a lot more than I needed to.
But here's where I get curious.
How much of that hesitation comes from being a beginner? How much comes from personality? And for women, is there sometimes another layer to it?
I can't honestly say I've experienced some terrible amount of sexism in tech, because I haven't. At least not in the communities I've been participating in.
But I also know that my experience doesn't represent every woman's experience.
I'm curious whether other women have felt like they needed to prove they knew what they were talking about before anyone would take them seriously.
Or whether they've noticed people making assumptions about their abilities.
And I'm just as interested in hearing from women who've had really positive experiences.
I don't think this is a conversation where we should assume everyone has had the same experience, because obviously we haven't.
That's what makes it worth discussing.
Finding your people makes a difference
Something I've learned since I started sharing my work is just how much the right community can change things.
There are places on the internet where asking a basic question feels like you're volunteering to be publicly roasted.
And then there are places where people are genuinely excited to see what you're working on, even when it's something small.
I've been lucky enough to find more of the second kind.
When I first started posting on DEV, I was nervous.
Now I'm sharing projects, writing articles, participating in discussions, and occasionally posting something before I've had enough time to talk myself out of it.
Progress!
And it's not because I've suddenly become some expert who knows everything.
Trust me, I definitely haven't.
I look things up constantly. I make mistakes. I run into problems that leave me staring at my screen wondering what I did wrong.
But I've learned that I don't need to know everything to have something worth contributing.
Sometimes you share something you've built and someone teaches you a better way to do it.
Sometimes someone else is working through the exact same problem you just figured out.
And sometimes a little project you're proud of inspires another person to try building something of their own.
That's the kind of interaction that makes people want to participate.
We have to do more than say beginners are welcome
I don't think tech is some universally hostile place where everyone is waiting to tear beginners apart.
There are so many genuinely kind, helpful people out there, and I've met quite a few of them.
But I also think there's room for improvement.
We can tell beginners to ask questions all day long, but if the response they get makes them wish they'd kept quiet, what good does that do?
We can encourage people to share their projects, but if we immediately dismiss anything that isn't particularly advanced, we're not exactly giving them a reason to share the next one.
And I think it's worth remembering that something simple to you might be a huge accomplishment to someone else.
Maybe it's their first working app.
Maybe it's the first bug they managed to track down on their own.
Maybe they finally understand something that's been confusing them for weeks.
That excitement is real, even if the accomplishment seems small from where you're standing.
I still get excited when I figure something out that I probably should have understood ages ago. And I'm not planning to stop anytime soon.
I think most of us can remember what it felt like when we were first learning something completely unfamiliar.
We just need to remember that feeling when we're the ones with a little more experience.
Because a welcoming community isn't really defined by what it says about beginners.
It's defined by how it treats them when they actually show up.
I'm curious what everyone else thinks
I'd really love to hear about your experiences, especially if they've been different from mine.
- When you were first learning, did you feel comfortable asking questions or sharing your work?
- Have you ever avoided participating in a community because you were afraid of being judged?
- For women in tech, do you feel your experience has been any different, good or bad?
- Are there particular communities that made you feel genuinely welcome?
I know my experience is only one perspective, and I think hearing from people who've had both positive and negative experiences could make for a really interesting discussion.
After all, if we want tech communities to be welcoming, it probably helps to listen to the people we're trying to welcome.
Top comments (3)
I use to avoid going into communities because of the notion of being judged and criticism. I realized that at some in your life, it's going to happen anyway knowing how you feel about it.
What I learn is in order to overcome it, you have to be exposed to it. Obviously not in a reckless way, but in a healthy way.
People come and go, and I can guarantee you will find someone. If not, you will have to keep looking. You only fail if you decide to give up.
I think you're right that we can't completely avoid criticism or judgment, and sometimes the only way to get more comfortable is to put ourselves out there. That's definitely something I've had to learn myself. And I totally agree on finding the right people. Every community is not going to be the right one for everyone. Finding that community where you feel comfortable learning and interacting makes such a huge difference. I'm really grateful to have found that here on DEV. The support and encouragement I've received from this community have helped me become so much more confident about putting myself out there.
The 21.1% figure is a good gut check. Plenty of people are reading along without ever posting.