trying not to feeli discouraged

[pinkvampyr]

i have a pretty bad habit (due to various brain weirdnesses as well as a general lack of self confidence) of getting disillusioned with new hobbies and eventually dropping off not long after i start them. typically it's because i feel like i'm not making progress or improving on a skill as quickly as i think i should be, which, to be clear, i recognize it's really unreasonable to expect myself to get a hang of things right away, my brain just cant internalize that.

so i guess i shouldn't be surprised that i've found myself feeling frustrated with how i don't feel like i'm really grasping even the basics of css. it feels like there's so much to remember too and i don't remember things well @_@ (again, brain weirdness that i shouldn't blame myself for but alas) i know memorization isn't the end goal but i feel very incompetent regardless :/

i don't really know what the point of saying this all is, i know the general "don't be so hard on yourself, practice makes perfect etc" i guess i just don't know where else to go to for encouragement from people who are doing what i'm trying to do >_>

[shevek]

I totally understand where you're coming from. I hope you won't give up though, because there is still so much to explore for you in the web creation space and I'm sure people look forward to seeing what you do next with your site

It's important to not put too much pressure on yourself to write everything from scratch every time without looking. Remember this isn't an exam where you gotta do math without a calculator. No one will scold you and you aren't cheating or getting a bad evaluation for googling, reading stackexchange or w3schools, or asking AI to give you the explanations again, or copying over code snippets from other sites or your own pages. I think probably all of us only internalized specific things about HTML or CSS because of repeating it over and over again because we added pages to our sites, added things to these pages, reworked those pages again, reworked the entire site, and so on. It just keeps building up. You get new ideas and want some changes so you'll look at it again and again and your brain will start to see the patterns and it takes less an less time to remember how something works. Your goal doesn't need to be to study the stuff theoretically until you can simply write it down by heart exactly how you want it. You also don't need to become "good" at it, just make stuff that works for you and gets the job done, even if the code can be a little weird at first before you go back and change it at some point because your understanding of things improved.

I don't know if you use any software to get code previews or just the Neocities editor, but if you don't, I'd recommend it; it has increased my learning a lot to see live changes to the code I make, and I don't have to worry about everyone on Neocities seeing the changes live. So I can get away with giving every container a color to see where it is, and some other shenanigans. That helps with not having to make it all perfect on the first try, but having fun in an editor trying stuff out before I commit to it.

I hope you can find the fun in it again!

[Memory]

These things need time. You won't make it tomorrow, and not tomorrow of tomorrow, but let's say, maybe 100 times tomorrow. Let me give you an example from myself. The problem of a self-sorting, self-expanding result table for my game bothered me since many years. I sit in front of my computer, try and try, but no proper idea materialises or the code is just too broken. Simply put, the goal was too high for the time. But somehow over time, I must have gotten to the concept of a checksum (maybe through watching a Computerphile / Numberphile video on Youtube...), like a MD5 checksum that tells you if two files are the same. And even that might be a year ago. But just now, last week, I knew that this is the puzzle piece to make my table work. Now I have a one single digit to identify the lines in the table, now the table knows, when a new entry needs to be added to it. Now it works in an elegant way.

What I want to say is, the process of gaining knowledge takes looooooots of time. Progessing as fast as a turtle (at least for reptile brains like myself). Gathering concepts subconciously over time... but only understanding how to make ends meet after months / years.

By the way, CSS, who needs that? You can make your website in plain HTML without CSS and still have plenty of design options.

[Memory]

so i guess i shouldn't be surprised that i've found myself feeling frustrated with how i don't feel like i'm really grasping even the basics of css

I still have to regularly google search "html img src" and the likes, relatively basic information regarding site building. Also, last night I spent two hours trying to fix something on a page I'm making just to suddenly remember that "background-attachment: fixed;" exists. And I went to college for web development LOL.

I understand that at times site building can be a frustrating and lonely experience, but one of the most important things (in my opinion) my friends taught me is: seeking help for that which you are struggling with is the greatest sign of knowledge and strength. It's all right to struggle, and it's expected. There's a lot to learn! We take the wins wherever and whenever they happen and seek help when needed.

I don't know if you use any software to get code previews or just the Neocities editor, but if you don't, I'd recommend it; it has increased my learning a lot to see live changes to the code I make, and I don't have to worry about everyone on Neocities seeing the changes live.

I agree with shevek here, being able to visually see what my code changes has increased my learning capacity so much. Right now, I use Visual studio Code's Go Live button to polish my web page before fully publishing it online, but Codepen works just as well too and is less confusing to set up lol.

[Melooon]

I still have to regularly google search "html img src"

I had to search "CSS how to centre an image" yesterday (I forgot it needed to be display: block  ) - it's always a process, and as soon as you think you know things, new things come along - if I knew ALL the CSS and HTML.. Im not sure I'd enjoy it anymore - You can choose to love what you don't know, or be stressed out by it; the former is a lot more fun!

@pinkvampyr It sounds like the issue is not with the hobbies you're trying, but with your relationship with them; maybe you're looking for the reassurance of closure and expertise, but that's not what hobbies provide - only time can give you that 

[pinkvampyr]

 @shevek @Gans @awhe @Melooon thank you all so much <3 i was feeling pretty down in the dumps yesterday but now i definitely feel more reassured, and for those who asked yes I'm using VSCode with the live server extension!