Embracing Discomfort: Lessons in Programming and Growth

Primegen regrets avoiding uncomfortable technologies, realizing that embracing challenges fosters growth and better problem-solving skills.

### Embracing Discomfort: Lessons from Two Decades of Programming
* 💻 After nearly two decades of professional programming experience in various languages, I reflect on a **critical mindset** I wish I could have changed **earlier in my career**.
* 📚 During my college years from 2007 to 2009, I was excited about programming but stuck to familiar tools like **Windows and NetBeans**, avoiding the challenges presented by **Linux and command-line interfaces**.
* 🖥 In 2008, I attempted to learn Ubuntu but quickly retreated due to my belief that **anything difficult or different was inherently wrong**, limiting my growth as a developer.
* 🤔 This mentality extended beyond technology; I often assumed I was right in various aspects of my life, which fostered a **false sense of confidence** that hindered my learning.
* 🚀 A pivotal moment came during an interview when I struggled to solve a problem that could have been **easily addressed with a simple command**, highlighting my **lack of experience with the command line**.
* 💡 I realized that **embracing discomfort and exploring unfamiliar tools** could lead to long-term benefits, improving my **problem-solving abilities and overall engineering skills**.
* 🌱 I encourage others to step out of their **comfort zones**, try **new technologies**, and **expand their horizons** to become better engineers, as **diverse experiences** are what truly differentiate junior developers from seniors.
* ✍ "Ultimately, the more ways you see a problem be solved, the more ways you can solve a problem," and I hope my story inspires others to **embrace learning and growth**.

So I have been programming professionally and on the side for getting close to two decades at this point. I've spent many years writing Java, C, C++, Python, Rust, Go, JavaScript, TypeScript—you name it. If I could go back and correct one mentality of mine

from that entire time, I know exactly what it would be. So first, let me tell you a story so that way you can kind of understand where I'm coming from. In 2007-8-9, I was in college. I'm pretty excited just learning how to program, getting

pretty dang fast. You know, I did a little bit in high school. I did a little bit of it when I was like, you know, in sixth grade, but now I'm really actually doing it. And the thing is is that I've always been on a Windows machine at that point.

I just loved obviously gaming. That was my thing. You almost got me trapped. Oh, I had a lot of fun doing it. And now all of a sudden, I'm in college, and that's still the operating system that I prefer, of course. A lot of my classes and everything

require me to use CentOS or CentOS. I can't—I have no idea. The fresh maker—I have no idea how you actually say the thing, but either way, I, you know, would straddle the line, right? For labs, I used CentOS. At home, I used Windows and

NetBeans on both because come on, it's NetBeans, the greatest editor of all time. In about 2008, I decided I wanted to start a website. I called it 'Life in America is Hard.' I thought it was funny. You'd leave little notes about things.

that are hard in America such as having to wait in line for coffee, those kind of things, right? Anyways, while I was developing it, I kind of had this idea, okay, I kind of want to get good at Linux. And so in 2008, I got a partitioned machine, put Ubuntu on it, and I stuck with it for probably about a week, but I just, I kind of like avoided it, you know what I mean? Like, yes, I was using it, but I really just avoided it. I didn't actually do it, and ultimately I stopped

using it altogether. I kind of had this mentality that I was right, and when I looked at things that had some sort of friction or difficulty to them, and I could kind of perceive it, I would just assume they are wrong. And what I mean by

this, of course, is like using the CLI or Vim or any, you know, kind of like the more hardcore hacker type things. It just felt like they were kind of a thing of the past, a relic of the past, and really the future's in these IDs and that is it.

And I didn't realize how much that was going to hinder me for quite some time, uh, for many, many years. I just simply avoided all these hard things, uh, things that were different, not because they were not beneficial, but because I simply assumed they weren't beneficial. I had

this mentality where I believed I was right, and that didn't just stop with the technologies I used, it also happened to be when I was at work, how I treated people, all those kind of things, right? Because it all is one mentality. I simply believed myself to be more correct, more

often than others in all sorts of areas and yeah I was pretty smart I did the best top of my class I was obviously very good at my job excelled above other people confidence kind of you know even though it was a bad type of confidence it kept compounding in on itself and if

I could go back I really just wish I could tell myself you know it is okay to be uncomfortable it is okay to use something that is perceivably slower than what you use right now or even way more difficult to do the same thing because it's not about your

instantaneous speed up it's about that long-term dividend play if I would have known this I would not have had nearly as bad of an interview as I did for a company I had they asked me hey could you go through a directory and it has

subdirectories and all these different files have uh you know just have a bunch of HTML and all this but we've been hacked and there's a bunch of free viagra call this number throughout all these different files and we'd like to remove all of them now of course me

being the young spittin engineer with zero tolerance for the CLI and those other things what did I do I literally by hand wrote perfectly working Java code buffered writer tokenizer bam bam bam bam bam wrote the entire recursive directory walk from my heart of hearts onto the board and of course what did my

interviewer do you could have just used grep and it was kind of like in that moment I realized I should probably know more right because looking back on it it's obvious I know exactly how I would solve that now you know boom little said grep

super combo right it'd be super easy to kind of go through some stuff and just depending on like if you just want the list of files or do you want me to change them right and so I kind of feel stupid right now looking back and so I

really hope you can hear this it's not just me trying to get you to use Vim or saying the CLI is the best place but really for you to look at problems and understand that you don't know everything and that using things that seem different or strange it's okay

because ultimately it's gonna make you a better engineer and who knows it may pay some amazing dividends down the road and hopefully you don't look like such a doofus as I did during that interview so go ahead if all you ever use is VS Code

try Emacs look at this I'm not even suggesting my favorite editor Vim at this point go just try anything else go try IntelliJ go try some other things see what you can do your all you ever do is just do React and front end try Solid

try Vue expand your horizon try to understand things better because ultimately the more ways you see a problem be solved the more ways that you can solve a problem we are often limited by our experiences and that's really what separates a junior from a senior is

just experiences experiences seeing things done differently and ultimately that's going to make you a much better engineer and I really wish I could have told myself that a decade ago I hope you liked this video please subscribe and of course actually make a comment down

Below, tell me a little story about yourself. I probably will reply to you. My name is Primegen.

If I could give advice to myself when starting as a software engineer

ThePrimeagen

Early programming experiences and a key regret

Two decades of programming experience across various languages.

College experience in 2007-2009, using Windows and NetBeans.

Using CentOS for labs and Windows with NetBeans at home.

Attempt to learn Linux in 2008, but quickly abandoning it.

Mentality of avoiding challenging tools (CLI, Vim) due to perceived inconvenience.

The negative consequences of avoiding challenges

This avoidance extended beyond technology to interpersonal interactions.

Overconfidence hindering growth and learning.

Regret over not embracing discomfort and alternative tools.

Negative interview experience due to lack of CLI knowledge.

The importance of embracing challenges and diverse tools

Encouragement to try different tools and technologies (Emacs, IntelliJ, Solid, Vue).

Expanding horizons to broaden problem-solving approaches.

The value of diverse experiences in differentiating junior and senior engineers.