LIONOFKURDISTAN
Great post!
There is some very good advice here.
Barely three months ago I was almost entirely ignorant of coding.
Problem was, I love forum admin duties .
When I first started, I simply intended to hire others to deal with any coding stuff for me, however I’ve discovered that it can be exceedingly difficult working with devs on even the most basic tasks, and typically also costs an arm and a leg.
For example if I wanted to change the size of discussion titles on one of my forums, it could potentially cost several hundred USD and might take days before any work gets done.
Or another example: perhaps I wanted to reposition the standard Flarum ‘Start a Discussion’ button up in the top navigation bar. 😂I couldn’t even find anyone willing to do the job. While the only responses I received at the Flarum “support” forum were along the lines of “you’ll have to submit an extension request”…“and wait”.
Having to depend on others to do even the most basic theme styling customizations isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, yet when those others aren’t available or unwilling or whatever, it meant all progress ceased and I’d be stuck waiting around or fruitlessly searching for non-existent answers online for days or maybe, just maybe, exactly three weeks and one day….at which point the waiting might become so frustrating it turns into anger….😅 like it did for me.
All I wanted to do was create a unique forum, yet being a so-called “Digital Outcast”, and therefore according to certain “experts” means I’m literally “retarded”, thus all I could do was flail about hopelessly…all while growing increasingly angered.
Eventually the anger achieved critical thresholds.
I’m sure a lot of people would see this as a non-constructive thing, since people, myself included, typically fail to channel the anger into anything other than destructive actions.
Fortunately I was already aware of the anger resulting from the lack of progress on the forum, so before the anger exploded, I began directing it into something constructive….😁 mercilessly abusing an AI coding bot….and also learning basic coding .
Three months later and with the code bot’s assistance, I am now able to customize pretty much anything I want. It is actually quite remarkable what we can do with some Java jammed inside an html doc and sprinkled with a bit of CSS.
It amazes me how quickly I seem to be learning this coding stuff, considering it’s taken over a decade to become reasonably proficient with Psychology, and around four years to get a grip on Law.
I think one of the key differences is the motivation for the learning.
I learnt Psych because my life genuinely depended on do so, and I learnt Law because basically legal language is a weapon used against us and like anyone else I had to defend myself.
I enjoyed learning both Psych & Law, however they’re nowhere near as fun as coding. Obviously it’s not all fun, but still fun nonetheless. So I would definitely agree with the OP’s advice regarding not learning coding just for the shekels. It’ll suck the fun right out of the learning and thus the rate of learning suffers in equal measure.
This can apply to many-many other areas in life too.
If we’re can find the positives in whatever it is we’re doing, and if we can maintain focus resilience throughout the experience, we enable the ideal conditions for the most beneficial outcomes to manifest.
🙂 Barely taken three months from scratch and right now I could list dozens of dozens of complete CSS & HTML codes off the top of my head.
Better still, apparently I’m already altruistic af, so I’m actually willing to help others learn any of the stuff I’ve picked up so far.
I’ll conclude here, tbh I am unsure how effectively my English will translate to Arabic. Hopefully everyone will be able to understand what I’m hoping to communicate.
🙂 Thanks for taking a moment to read this.
Good fortune smiles upon us all…
