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Comment by rabuse | Hacker News Reader

I've attempted to teach multiple family members/friends over the years "how to code", and they give up almost immediately. They "just don't get it", and I'd argue one needs to seriously find enjoyment in building things, and knowing how long things can take, to get started.

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I'm not trying to level this against your friends and family, just an observation that I've been meaning to share, spurred by "just don't get it":

When I was in community college I had to take "Critical Thinking" as a pre-req for Symbolic Logic.

We spent the first 1/3 of the class, 8 weeks, analyzing truth statements, basically and, or and not. I was bored to tears, but attendance was mandatory, so I got to see how people absolutely struggled with this, and "just didn't get it". The average score on the mid-term covering that was a low D after 8 weeks of (excruciating for me) examples. I finished in <15 minutes and got 100%.

When you are in a bubble of people who work in engineering fields, especially in tech where logic is fundamental, I think it's easy to think that logic comes naturally to everybody, but it's far from ubiquitous and reading on here it sometimes feels like some people just don't realize this, especially those deep in tech.

Sometimes it's hard for engineers. In college, I majored in Computer Science, and for an elective, I took Electronics for non-EE majors. The first half of the course was analog electronics which I struggled with, but everyone else appeared to be following along fine. It was the second half of the class, with digital electronics, where things flipped. Students would struggle with "5V is a 1? 5V isn't 1V! What's going on?" while for me it was, "yeah, yeah, I know this already ... "

That's like most hobbies/careers.

People want to learn the guitar|piano|violin, until they realize the amount of work it takes.

People want to get fit and jacked, until they realize the amount of work it takes.

People want to be a lawyer/doctor/engineer, until they realize the amount of work it takes.

Or they realize that they just don't really like it.

Programming isn't any different. One needs a particular mindset, and a level of patience to deal with debugging. It's not for everyone, and that's fine.

E'ybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but don't nobody want to lift no heavy-ass weights.

https://youtu.be/4UlgXIL0-3g?t=10

I know it's a pithy saying, but is it true? People tend to report the actual lifting of the weights as pretty pleasurable. It's the whole supporting lifestyle grind of consistently making it to the gym, only and always eating food whose ingredients you have weighed, etc. where you lose most people.

As part of the right routine and exercises, lifting weights can be very pleasant. Personally, I love doing a good set of dumbbell rows.

What keeps me (and I think a lot of people) from getting ripped is the sheer consistency needed. Doing anything that isn't strictly necessary for 1-2 hours 5-6 days per week every week for years is extremely difficult imo. I get knocked off course very easily, sometimes for months at a time, and I have yet to find a solution for this.

It's a pithy saying. It's basically shorthand for: "nobody wants to put in the work and adjust their lifestyle to achieve that goal of being ripped". But I wouldn't say doing 3x or 5x sets of lifting heavy weights ever is "fun"- you just get used to it.

> People tend to report the actual lifting of the weights as pretty pleasurable

Slightly NSFW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xZQ0YZ7ls4

> People tend to report the actual lifting of the weights as pretty pleasurable.

well yeah, those are the people who are actually lifting the weights. the rest of us get sorted into the "don't want to lift no" category

Only caveat is, and this is where I feel bad, if the person hasn't learned something new in a very long time, they forget what it feels like to change, or even become convinced that they can't. It can be hard to convince someone that no, you don't need to have aptitude or be any good at it after a few days, weeks, even months. You just need to keep doing it. As long as the goal is realistic, you'll succeed. Whether you are more or less "talented" than someone else affects the timeline (a little) but you are going to the same place (again, realistic goals).

Applies to learning foreign languages too. I've spoken to many people that want to "learn Spanish" without having a clue that it's a huge grind to get to basic competency.

> one needs to seriously find enjoyment in building things

I would say you have to also be happy with/enjoy confusion and frustration.

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