I tried a few methods.

First osmosis. I would put several programming books under my pillow but that was just a pain in the neck.

Next I tried the TF/RQ methods. I would try to write some code not knowing anything about the language. When it didn't work I'd rage quit and flip the table. That ended with a pile of broken IKEA desks and a lot of spilled coffee. (RIP Coffee 😔)

Finally I sat down and came up with a problem I wanted to solve. I googled it, looked at answers. Tried the code myself, if it worked I'd go over it piece by piece so I could explain to anyone exactly what it did and why.

Honestly, learning to code just comes down to doing it and being fearless. The more curious you are, the more you'll learn.

Why gravity why not osmosis

The reason I stick around at my current job is thanks to a mentor who has helped me reach greater potential.

He's our senior architect.

It began with him simply bouncing ideas off me. I was a rubber duck basically. After a while I began to understand these ideas. All sorts of design patterns, cache invalidation problems and solutions, and so much more.

It was almost as if through osmosis that I began to research things and learn more and more about topics I had only barely seen in high-level articles and papers.

Once I began to contribute to the discussion, he helped foster that. I went from being a rubber duck to a protege.

My pay here isn't what it should be. The problems we're faced with are stressful and often times wear me out. I stay because I'm self-taught and I yearn for learning as I always have.

This isn't just my job, but my passion. I love what I do, and I get up happy to come here every day knowing I'll learn something new while doing what I love.

My non-techie girlfriend tends to get a tad pissed at me when she understands what people are talking about when she overhears them talking about programming stuff, e.g. "website with Python backend" or "differences between JavaScript and EcmaScript"... what can I say, she's the best rubber duck there is!

Year 7 maths in 1984 - the teacher had a computer and showed us some BASIC commands to do mathematics.

I was spellbound. That year my father also bought a Commodore 64 for the family and I gravitated towards it. I typed program listings out of magazines and learnt programming almost by osmosis.

When "staff training" at the company you work for is just assigning someone with zero experience or education to you in the hope they gain knowledge via the little-known method of osmosis.

RANT! Clown VISA developer (you know, the one with ”extensive experience”) has still not finished his task which he was assigned after failing the last one which was easier. I wrote that they would fail and they have not even deployed anything to any environment. Not even dev. They just fuck around on their machines and this VISA guy says some nonsense shit on daily standups using mother fucking big words like it is really some difficult task they are doing. NOTHING has been done. It’s such a moral sink for the team.

When I asked nicely and asked if they have automated test they responded with a yes. So, I just dive into the repo and… no. There is no tests at all.

It is almost like they _think_ that tests automatically ate induced by osmosis or quantum mechanics or something. There is no tests. None. Zero. Why the ”yes”? 🤔

I looked at the commits and I can see no actual brain activity.

It will take a miracle. A miracle I say, to get any productive work out of this guy. What should he do? I mean, what should he actually get paid for? I do not understand. And he walks around in these $400 dollar jackets and coats and shit like he knows stuff.

I am having a really hard time accepting that he actually get paid at all.

I'm usually a complete moron, but I've smoked a series of technical interviews this week. Hell yeah osmosis learning

Expected to know everything about C# when all you've done is used Visual Studio to build an installer that bundles up someone else's C# app.

I'm a Web Dev not a magician (although at times I feel like it 😊).

Yes I've got a bit of the knowledge that's managed to get into my brain via osmosis but not mission critical level stuff.