jrookie

lol not really, but I do find myself using a Java hashmaps and not knowing how hashing works, using a regex that was copied and pasted from google without understanding what it does, programming in java and not knowing how the GC algorithms work, or working with threads and not knowing the basics of OS schedulers, programming and not being proficient with bitwsie opperations... and the list goes on, at least that is my interpretation of a cargo cult "java" programmer.

Thanks,

I tried reading that Godel book and I couldn't wrap my head around it, I will give it a second shot though.

Thanks for your words, no need to apologize :).

Yes I agree that there are algorithms that I would have never known about without hitting the books, I came across this recently. I was trying to solve one of ITA software hiring puzzles(Just for fun somebody mentioned it in SO) the "instant search" puzzle, I could never find a solution to the problem I spent days playing with it until I decided to give up, a few months later I found out about "Suffix trees" from wikipedia and found an implementation in Java, I'm still trying to understand about how it works but I used it in the ITA puzzle and the thing actually works and its freaking FAST!.

Thanks for your words.

Most of the stuff I've been doing for the last year or so is bug fixing as I have found that I'm better at finding and fixing bugs and even adding stuff to code that is already written and I really get excited when I get something working, It just takes a very long time for me to develop something from scratch mostly because I'm never comfortable with my code and I end up re writing everything and thus never getting anywhere.

Thanks for your answer,

The difficult part for me is that I have to force myself to ask the questions that you talk about, it's definitely not intuitive for me and my first reaction is not to think about the different solutions a problem could have, like you said I can't break a problem into chunks, and this I think is essential to be a programmer.

Yes! thanks for mentioning that book I forgot about it but I plan on getting to it eventually, there's just so many things to learn, so many books...sometimes I feel overwhelmed.

Thanks.

Thanks!

And yes I really think I need a mentor, just haven't found one yet, or haven't looked hard enough.

Thanks for your answer.

The last thing I want is to give up again, sadly the more I try the more these thoughts come in to my head and the harder it is to throw them away.

Thanks for your words.

Sadly I have really bad social skills.

Thanks, I will give it a shot.

Thanks for this.

I'm currently using Ubuntu as my primary OS at home but I will give Gentoo a shot.

Thanks for you answer, you tackle some of the other things I've been struggling with for the last few years.

1. I work with other experience programmers but they are not really into "mentoring", I have been looking for someone online who can lead me on the path of the hacker.

2.Good point, sometimes I do feel like I don't know how to learn. Thanks for the link I will check it out.

3.This is one of my flaws...I'm not very confident in my abilities, and frankly I never feel like I have something good enough to contribute, this is also why I've never felt comfortable starting a blog or participating in open source projects.

Thanks for your words.

I agree with you that formal education is valuable when you lack direction on "how" and "what" to learn as you stated.

Thanks for your words of encouragement.

Thanks for your answer.

I would really like to learn more about machine learning and NLP, after reading a bit about them I found them to be incredibly interesting subjects, however my Math/Algorithms skills are a barrier into understanding most of the concepts, that is why I plan on eventually getting a CS degree.

And yes I agree, it might seem like I'm trying to learn too much at the same time, I'm just incredibly overwhelmed about all of the stuff I've been blatantly ignorant about whilst calling myself a "programmer".

Thank you for your answer.

I have already installed linux as my primary OS at home, I still have to stick to windows in my job though.

Thank you for the links I will check them out!