2mo ago

How proficient do you rate yourself in your most coded language?

Hi,

My question certainly stems from the imposter syndrome that I am living right now for no good reason, but when looking to resolve some issues for embedded C problems, I come across a lot of post from people that have a deep understanding of the language and how a mcu works at machine code level.

When I read these posts, I do understand what the author is saying, but it really makes me feel like I should know more about what's happening under the hood.

So my question is this : how do you rate yourself in your most used language? Do you understand the subtilities and the nuance of your language?

I know this doesn't necessarily makes me a bad firmware dev, but damn does it makes me feel like it when I read these posts.

I get that this is a subjective question without any good responses, but I'd be interested in hearing about different experiences in the hope of reducing my imposter syndrome.

Thanks

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83 comments

Good enough to make my own things or mod things.
But not good enough to get a job as a programmer.
- But not good enough to get a job as a programmer.
  This is as weird of a time for getting hired as a programmer as we have ever had. Hang in there. Once we let AI deployment pipelines start causing production outages and shareholder bankruptcies, we will start falling over ourselves to hire human programmers again.
  
  I mean that it's quite a leap going from making, like, a text-based adventure in C++ or BASIC and changing/adding lines of code to someone else's thing making mods to doing actual, professional level programming of systems I have never even fucked with for fun. Like, I can't make the screen display an image. I don't know how to do any sort of networking, at least from a programming standpoint (hardware and shit, no problem; I was CISCO and A+ certified at one point).
  I guess if all they need me to do is make what is essentially a database or calculator, I could do that. 🤷🏻‍♂️
  
  That's the beauty of programming (and lots of skills, really) - once we master the basics, all we tend to notice is what we haven't learned yet.
  It's hard on our confidence, but there's also a perverse beauty to it.
  It is a big leap, but it's the kind of leap that gets easy when doing the job with training for dozens of hours per week.
  And it's also a very small leap compared to the average computer user who doesn't know why smoke shouldn't come out of the computer case during normal operation.
  One of the cool things that AI will do is once again lower the barrier of entry for full time programmers.
  We're on our way to finding out just how terrible AI is as a pilot, but it makes a damn fine co-pilot much of the time. And it'll be key in welcoming in and enabling our next batch of brilliant full time programmers.
  
  Feels good to hear this. I'm also struggling to enter the industry and it's nice to read something hopeful for a change

83 comments