How long did it take you to get comfortable with coding?

I recently got a LinkedIn invitation from a random person. After accepting it I got a message from this person. It said:

Hey Silvestar! I recently started to learn React and all the wonderful things that go with it. I really liked your write up about CSS auditors, lots of good links and info and very well written. I was just wondering how long it took you to get this comfortable with coding? Thanks.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to answer or should I answer at all, but then again, it didn’t cost anything for me to reply and possibly help this person. Here’s my reply:

Hi,

Thank you for the kind words.

To answer your question honestly, it took several years to get comfortable with coding, especially when I started to learn new things.
For example, it took a year to get comfortable with PHP, then it took several months to get comfortable with HTML and CSS, then it took several months to get comfortable with jQuery, then it took several months to get comfortable with JavaScript, then it took several months to get comfortable with Angular2, and so on.

Now, I am working mainly with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and I am in my maximum comfort zone. It took approximately 7-8 years.

But that was my journey. I bet you will have a completely different one.

I hope I have answered your questions.

This person thanked me, and that was it.

But after that, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I’m still not comfortable in some areas. For example, when I need to write a NodeJS script or lambda function, I am very uncomfortable, and I still don’t know if I am doing the right thing. The code works, but could it be better, more secure, and performant?

That reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite shows, Peep Show. In it, Mark has a good hand in poker, but, Mark being Mark, he folds because “there’s just no way of knowing for sure (if someone else has a better hand).” He is just not comfortable with the situation, and he gives up. On the other hand, Jez has a pretty bad hand, but, Jez being Jez, he goes all-in and bluffs the other guy with a stronger hand. He then says to himself: “I’m really good at this without realizing how.” I love that quote, and I’ve been using it in my email signatures forever.

Getting comfortable with coding is definitively tricky and individual. So how long did it take you to get comfortable with coding?

Comments

[Timmortal]

I think there's a quote that be like this

" Comfort is the enemy of achievement"

Just read an article about discomfort, few mins ago, the title says

"Want to Be Successful? Don't Chase Success, Chase Discomfort"

My Two Cents.

[bramuel]

Happened to me today after I received a resignation later from a colleague. He had quit his job to learn coding and we as remote startup company had given him access to real word projects and resources, but after 5 months he lost his nerve because he saw it as unfruitful, hectic and painful. He is more than willing to secure his old job in order to pay bills.

[GP]

Been coding for 22 years and still haven't felt myself comfort yet! It may not happen at all.

[Hamid Bluri]

4 years

[T20League.com]

Comfortability is not the concern, its more of remembering the colons and semi colons.. Anyway, I am now comfortable in CSS, Javascript, Python and Php

[Ozuzu Chidiebere]

I started coding last year, and I can tell you I am not yet comfortable with coding.

Learning a programming language has never been easy for me. Most times, I try implementing the language in a real-life project. But I end up crashing out.😟

[Laci Kosco]

For me maybe couple of years. The confidence grows as you see your code running in production. Maybe do some fixes.
What surprises me is every time I look at my old code because something needs to be changed, I wonder what was I smoking that time. I would definitely write it different this time. And this happens even to one year old code!
It is great fun, even after 20 years of practice.

[Calenté Cardwell]

GIT GUD

[Anneta Wamono]

I think my comfort lies in "I can get it to work", but I feel uncomfortable/unconfident about "Can I get it to work better?". I think that is because it's easy to find examples of how to make code work but hard to find examples to improve your code. I think it's something you learn over time and when you work on projects of different scales.

[Glenn Miller]

I've been a programmer since 1975, nearly 47 years. Now, at my age, I realize the work I accomplished through most of my career doesn't exist anymore. There is no trace of you. No legacy. All that remains is nostalgia with no one to share it with. The thing is, I don't care. The challenge of tackling the next big thing is what I enjoyed most in this profession. I'm still programming several hours a day, but now it's Rust instead of C/C++/C#, and it's WASM instead of plain old web. Enjoy the journey.