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Comment by apl002 | Hacker News Reader

As a somewhat still new and self taught programmer, the "dont compare yourself to others, but where you were in the past" really resonates with me.

I've come a really long way and I'm proud of how far I've come. At the same time I definitely have moments where I interact with someone else and think I'm still such a novice. I am much better at when this happens, being ok with it being true and using it as motivation to keep learning and get better.

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Yeah those "Oh for the love of god why didn't I think of that!" moments can be a little heartbreaking when you knew all of those pieces but chose to do something ... lesser.

I think long term managing that frustration... is 90% of the battle for me.

I learned after age 40 and my patience is so much better than when I was younger. I suspect it has helped a great deal.

Most of the time when that happens to me, I try to remember all the times I did something well and didn't think about it. Usually those far outnumber the bad ones.

I'm gonna give you a secret... this will make your career easy... listen.

'The more you learn, the less you know'.

Now say it to yourself.

Totally. Something I learned very early on was your big idea isn't as big or clever as you think (necessarily, but sometimes it is!), so it's worthwhile to canvas the office to first find out the history of why something is the way it is or why we don't currently do X.

Often you find it used to be done that way in the past and then they stopped doing it that way because Y. It turns up all kinds of interesting stuff that no amount of thinking will get you to on your own.

That would be my number one advice for those starting out.

related: Dunning–Kruger effect

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