I’ve tried a few times in the past to get into it but I just get overwhelmed. I’m frankly amazed by and so thankful for all the programmers who contribute to all of the great libre software I use. I am stuck at the level of knowing more about computers than essentially everyone I know or encounter, while simultaneously being a complete and utter noob to anyone who actually understands computing. I just know how to use search engines and follow instructions written by people smarter than me.
Don’t discount yourself. I’m dumb as shit. There’s a lot of dumb programmers. We just know a handful of things and kept beating our heads at it until suddenly, it works.
Keep picking up things every year and after a few years, suddenly you know more than others and they keep promoting you.
Everyone is overwhelmed when learning to program or even learning a new framework. This is normal. We just do our best to ignore that feeling and keep going. You will often fail and sometimes spend hours wondering why something doesn’t work. But eventually it will become easier and you will be able to make cool things. Python and JavaScript are good languages for beginners (but choose one).
If you would like to contribute to Libre Software, there are other ways you can do it too. You can join some chat rooms for a specific project and help people when they have issues. You can help to document things or help translate stuff.
Learn with the help of LMMs (AI chatbots), it’s awesome, just let it generate some code, read it, understand it, and try make the code better, more beautiful and/or more efficient. Add some feature you miss in the code, don’t hesitate to ask your LMMs follow up question, it won’t laugh at stupid questions, it is just great.
However, do keep in mind that LLMs regularly pull language an library features out of their asses that have no direct correspondent in practice. I’d use the LLMs to generate small snippets of code, giving them a small and restricted set of requirements to minimize hallucinations.
Yea, encountered that as well (depending on LLM model). Mostly, it is enough to just feed the exception output back into the LLM thread and it will Fix it’s bugs, or at least can tell you why this exception normally occurs.
Depends on the culture of the space. For cis white males, no problem. Anyone outside that description, though, you might have to hunt to find one that’s welcoming.
The makerspace I helped get off the ground is far from perfect, but we try. It was started in the first place because the existing makerspace in town was very much not welcoming to people outside of cis white males. Around 25% of our membership identifies as not male (which is really high for a makerspace, but we can do better). A super majority of the current board is also non-male identifying.
Hey! I’m a trans FOSS enthusiast studying computer science and I hope to be a FOSS dev sometime in the future.
I stay inside pretty much all day. In terms of hanging out irl, the closest I do is vc lol. It actually would be nice to hang out with someone irl though.
Can someone tell me where all the trans FOSS devs/enthusiasts hang out IRL, I need friends 🥺
~Signed, a lonely trans FOSS enthusiast (not a programmer sadly, maybe I just need thigh high socks…)
I’m laughing but it hurts 😭
Highly recommend picking up programming.
Many communities are very welcoming.
Worse case scenario, you end up loving programming and making it in a career and making a lot of money.
Best case scenario, you contribute to open source.
I am too dumb brain for programming :(
I’ve tried a few times in the past to get into it but I just get overwhelmed. I’m frankly amazed by and so thankful for all the programmers who contribute to all of the great libre software I use. I am stuck at the level of knowing more about computers than essentially everyone I know or encounter, while simultaneously being a complete and utter noob to anyone who actually understands computing. I just know how to use search engines and follow instructions written by people smarter than me.
Don’t discount yourself. I’m dumb as shit. There’s a lot of dumb programmers. We just know a handful of things and kept beating our heads at it until suddenly, it works.
Keep picking up things every year and after a few years, suddenly you know more than others and they keep promoting you.
99% of being a programmer is knowing what to Google, so you’re halfway there.
Everyone is overwhelmed when learning to program or even learning a new framework. This is normal. We just do our best to ignore that feeling and keep going. You will often fail and sometimes spend hours wondering why something doesn’t work. But eventually it will become easier and you will be able to make cool things. Python and JavaScript are good languages for beginners (but choose one).
If you would like to contribute to Libre Software, there are other ways you can do it too. You can join some chat rooms for a specific project and help people when they have issues. You can help to document things or help translate stuff.
It’s a lot of abstraction to ingest, keep exposing yourself to deeper topics until it becomes natural.
Learn with the help of LMMs (AI chatbots), it’s awesome, just let it generate some code, read it, understand it, and try make the code better, more beautiful and/or more efficient. Add some feature you miss in the code, don’t hesitate to ask your LMMs follow up question, it won’t laugh at stupid questions, it is just great.
However, do keep in mind that LLMs regularly pull language an library features out of their asses that have no direct correspondent in practice. I’d use the LLMs to generate small snippets of code, giving them a small and restricted set of requirements to minimize hallucinations.
Yea, encountered that as well (depending on LLM model). Mostly, it is enough to just feed the exception output back into the LLM thread and it will Fix it’s bugs, or at least can tell you why this exception normally occurs.
Am career programmer, where money?
Move to Silicon Valley or get hired by a Silicon Valley company that allows remote work.
Hey, you can get lucky too!!
Trans dev here, I hear that hacker spaces aren’t bad places to look. I wouldn’t know though, too shy to actually show up -.-
Depends on the culture of the space. For cis white males, no problem. Anyone outside that description, though, you might have to hunt to find one that’s welcoming.
The makerspace I helped get off the ground is far from perfect, but we try. It was started in the first place because the existing makerspace in town was very much not welcoming to people outside of cis white males. Around 25% of our membership identifies as not male (which is really high for a makerspace, but we can do better). A super majority of the current board is also non-male identifying.
Even there, we’re still pretty white.
Hey! I’m a trans FOSS enthusiast studying computer science and I hope to be a FOSS dev sometime in the future.
I stay inside pretty much all day. In terms of hanging out irl, the closest I do is vc lol. It actually would be nice to hang out with someone irl though.
If you’re in South Asia, we can hang out I guess
IRC
You could consider attending the next Chaos Communication Congress. Met lots of great people there