32.1. You Got This

If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.

—Martin Luther King Jr.

A wise programmer once told me that the reassuring thing about coding is that there is always an answer. She said that while much of life is uncertain and we're faced with questions that don't have definite answers, when we program we can be certain that there is an answer to whatever problem that we have. We just need to find it.

This is where persistence or frustration tolerance comes in. What characterizes people who succeed as computer programmers is not how much math they know, or whether they took apart computers when they were eleven years old, or even whether they have a computer science degree. It is how hard they will work to find a solution.

What it takes to succeed as you go through this course and beyond in your coding journey is a determination to not give up. To keep trying new things. To keep taking another look at the problem and coming up with another idea for how to solve it. To accept that this maddening process is not some flaw in you or in the field. But rather that it is the nature of the job itself. That you can learn to love it. And that's why you will earn the big bucks.

Use the following pages when ever you need some motivation/inspiration, i.e., a boost.

Remember,

Rome wasn't built in a day.