this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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ADHD

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Im wondering if this is a common adhd thing.

For example, I have always wanted to program, but I can't let myself start with some easy gui building block code. I need to understand how the code is interacting with the computer itself and know how they did it in the 80s. Then of course it's too hard for me and I give up.

Or if im making music, I need to do everything from scratch the hard way, making it as hard as possible (and killing any creative effort i had in the beginning).

It's the same with anything. I can't progress if I dont know the absolute reason why something is being done. And if I do it the easy way, I didn't do it right and took shortcuts so it was worthless.

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[–] Avalokitesha@programming.dev 4 points 2 days ago (6 children)

I'm like that and one of my friends as well. We're both not diagnosed but strongly suspecting AD(H)D, and I'm also diagnosed with autism.

I can't count the times I started trying to learn programming and ended up quitting for that very reason - but every time I did I knew a little bit more. So I just tried to learn my way and next time I wouldn't need to look up asuch and got a little farther. But I also have the luck of having programmer friends who don't mind trying to answer my sometimes very unusual questions, and over the several attempts I've learned enough to be able to work in test automation.

If you have patient and encouraging people around you you'll eventually get there :) don't go for ui at first, look for console programs so you can get to things like conditions and loops quickly. That's where the meat is for me.

[–] iarigby@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

you should try Harvard’s CS50 course. Does a good job at covering essentials of computer science, not just programming

[–] Avalokitesha@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

I tried that several times but it never worked out for various reasons. For me I really started growing once I was working and had a team that was happy I wanted to learn more and answer my questions.

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