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How dev.to (occasionally) rubs me up the wrong way
Recently, I've read several articles dealing with imposter syndrome. Full of optimism and reassurance, the papers try hard to soothe the irritated consciousness of poor souls that deemed themselves unworthy.
People often need a gentle maternal caress, encouraging them to continue on the mournful journey through challenges and obstacles. Still, these motivational speeches often result in boosted egos of certain authors who do not hesitate to bring authoritative advice despite the minor issue of knowing nothing substantial.
For instance, one of them has posted a mind-blowing list of how to learn Python in one week. If I were a beginner, I would greatly appreciate it since one week of my life is a reasonable price to pay. Unfortunately, after dabbling with Python for seven years, eight months, and 14 days (yes, I know the time span exactly because I can deduce it from my checkio account), I was rather enraged that nobody had informed me that Python was that easy.
Trust me; I would rather have this author suffering from the imposter syndrome rather than sharing such wisdom here (or anywhere else). It feels like a blatant scam to me; I saw real-life newbies struggle with programming. One week is often not enough to run their first hello world, much less conquer the vast land of Python fundamentals.
One girl whom I guided online failed even in downloading and installing Python under Windows. Which, by the way, brings me to another bullet.
Several times, I've encountered programmers, infatuated with their language of choice (sometimes, I even suspect them that the language of their choice is the only programming language they know) who do not shy away from recommending languages like C, C++, C#, Java, or JavaScript to beginners.
There are several excellent reasons why not to do that. As I said before, many beginners do not manage basic things (considered commonplace by a slightly advanced IT student), so pushing them into gory details of hardware (C, C++), industry OOP (Java, C#), or sloppily designed (JavaScript) languages borders with a criminal offense.
Even the arguments provided by their proponents feel otherworldly. Learn C or C++ because they are lightning-fast. I beg your pardon? Similarly, why not teach driving F1 racing cars to teenagers attempting to get their driving licenses? It would make sense because F1 racing cars trump the ordinary, slow, and safe hatchbacks, don't they?
The final bullet deals with the irritating, but a considerably less dangerous avalanche of articles, tirelessly repeating the same stuff over and over again.
I would not mind, but the majority of these extensions, praised by their authors, are the first ones that appear as soon as one opens the extension sidebar in VS Code. Am I really the only one who bothers to check this very sidebar every now and then?
But not only that, their authors, instead of naming these articles timidly like THE WELL KNOWN EXTENSIONS I USE AND YOU ALL PROBABLY KNOW, advertise them like THE EXTENSIONS YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF. Preposterous!
Ending my rant here, I would like to remind all online writers that there is nothing wrong with enforcing their knowledge and skills by writing articles.
Even tens of thousands of write-ups are bearable, even if they bring nothing new to the table. However, I would suggest reconsidering the way of how to present them to the online audience.
The title I SOMEHOW MANAGED TO IMPLEMENT THE SUPER SORT AND I LOVE TO HAVE FEEDBACK is more honest and less misleading than HOW TO WRITE THE SUPER SORT, especially if the code threatens to blow up at the first run.
I may be spoiled by the time spent on checkio.org, where the most common thing was browsing and commenting on other people's code (I have not been an active member for several years, though), but what else are we supposed to do on the platform, mainly visited by developers?
What do you think?
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