Growing Your Skills as a Software Engineer
Over the past ~6 years I've been friends with a great programmer - someone that has taught me stuff over the years and I still learn stuff from him. I've grown to ask him for help when I'm stuck rather than dig deep on an issue and this is certainly a BAD thing to do. I've recently realized that I do it too often and while I still do my own research it's still bad. If I ever want to grow my skills I need to figure things out on my own - I'm basically spoiled. I'm certainly a better programmer than when I first started, but I can't stop thinking that maybe if I didn't ask for help as often my skills would be better.
It's not bad to ask for help, which I think most programmers are shy about or have a huge ego. If you're having trouble after trying to figure it out for several hours then yeah go ask for some help from someone.
Go and contribute to some open-source software. I've noticed recently that as I've been contributing to some software it's getting me out of my comfort zone and therefore I'm learning new things. This will also get you some feedback on the code you write so then you can improve using that feedback. Imposter syndrome is a real thing...
until next time