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it's been a few hours and this post finally unearthed a relevant memory back when i was a child, programming _was_ a competition. i was heavily encouraged (effectively forced) to participate in programming olympiads. i hated it so much, my career afterwards might be shaped as a reaction to that

which is to say: use libraries; document my shit; share it with others; actively collaborate instead of competing; seek out designs optimized for long term rather than "just to win this one 2 hour engagement"; probably some other things I forget

yes!! "collaborate instead of competing" is exactly the vibe i was trying to get across. all the capitalists might be competing but hardly any of the programmers i know are. i see you doing all these things and it's quite remarkable, i appreciate your work a lot :) i'm glad this post resonated.

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thank you for the kind words! a point that i keep making repeatedly (though usually not on social media) is that You Can Be Like Me (If You Want). i did this to myself and others can too!! this is both a good and a bad thing, but that's what agency is for! 1/2

for better or worse, i regularly run into people who idolize me. this grosses me the fuck out on a personal level. it also makes me feel like i've failed, if only in the small task of "make the field more accessible". i do not know how to cope with this. it's been very not good for me 2/2

i think a lot of people don't have very much self-confidence, maybe, and see people Doing Hard Things as magic instead of just spending a shit ton of time at getting better? idk. mostly i cope by hanging around other people who are Doing Hard Things, or who see it as a chance to learn.