Lars Wikman on what it takes to learn software development and how he responds when people ask him how they should go about it:

At the time I was learning, I didn’t have access to any kind of bigger picture. I had limited resources. Limited documentation. I had so many limitations. I ran into them constantly and eventually found the next thing I could use to do cool stuff. If you try to teach someone to use an HTML form today, you will need to decide if you are talking about the basic idea or reality. Do we need to cover CSRF, captchas and how to do it in React? How about the backend? Starting out, I didn’t hear about half of the things I didn’t know; I think that made things easier.

When it comes to the software industry, this is the best of times. There are amazing learning resources available, a vast repository of free code that you don’t have to write, and lucrative job offers on the other end of the chasm.

When it comes to the software industry, this is the worst of times. There are too many learning resources to choose from, a crippling repository of free code that might stumble you, and overwhelming imposter syndrome on the other end of the chasm.

Lars sums it up nicely:

Hand someone a fish and they’ll never know that the ocean is vast. Teach them how to fish and they’ll be forever lost at sea.