The Journey of a 2.0 Newbie

Learning a new skill is never easy; and programming has proven to be one of the hardest challenges I’ve faced.

I began my coding journey in 2024 when I joined ALX, knowing nothing but eager to write those magical lines of code that bring apps or games to life. But reality hit me very fast. We began with Shell basics, which were smooth, then moved to C language which humbled me. Starting C, I thought: “If I can print Hello, World!, then I can do anything.” On came about functions, pointers and arrays which didn’t just confuse me but crush me to the pits. Instead of truly learning, I took shortcuts: copying code just to pass. Soon, I was drowning in recursion, data structures, and memory allocation without understanding the foundations. By June 2024, I knew I had to take a step back: I felt guilty, defeated, and convinced maybe programming wasn’t for me.

Still, the dream never left. After months of reflection, I realized the first thing I needed to fix wasn’t my code; it was my mindset.

Now, as I restart my journey, I come better prepared: mentally, emotionally, and practically. I know there will be long nights of debugging. I know errors will test my patience. But I also know this: quitting isn’t an option anymore.

This time, my path is clear: Progress >>> Perfection.