Warning: This article contains probably 5% important information and 95% rants.

1. Videos are a ridiculously bad way of teaching others things. Why are people still attending lectures? Reading is 1. Much faster and 2. Refer-able. If I forgot this syntax (and of course I will), I can scan through a page INSTEAD OF LISTENING TO YOU TALK FOR 5 MINUTES JOHN.

   • Tutorials are a semi-good way to learn stuff because at the very least you're following along.
   • I'm pretty sure being in an active forum for 2 years has at least some influence - I can't watch lectures now. I can't do zoom class. I would zone out in 2 minutes. So I don't even try. Is it better to listen to a zoom class for 45 minutes and forget everything the next hour or to struggle for 5 hours and still don't know where you went wrong? I don't know, you tell me.
2. Installing packages are a developer nightmare. I would rather fix a bug than try to install Pip and Flask and MySQL any other day.

3. Getting started with using Flask Python is ridiculously hard, especially when compared to npx create-react-app. What is virtual environment anyways, and why does the yellow squiggly line still exist under my import Flask even though I followed every single StackOverFlow answer for this exact question? Am I missing something or is Visual Studio Code dumb?

   • But at least there's no boilerplate that scares the heck out of me like when I first installed React and thought to myself OMG I need to know all of this???

4. If you are using Flask to create front-end, you're doing it wrong.

   • Seriously, why would you? It has the worst syntax ever and confused the freak out of me even though I knew Python for 2 years. Also there's no syntax highlighting which is the worst possible nightmare.
5. You can have 2! .gitignore and Github would actually ignore the files in them!
6. Instead of starting a new repository from scratch every single time with Github and reinstalling and reordering all my file, I can simply add a remote origin aka the-second-section-that-has-been-there-all-along-but-I-never-noticed. You live, you learn.
7. It is ridiculously difficult to install MySQL. Why are you making me suffer when I'm using your product? And at least I'm using MacOS. But that doesn't stop me from searching for MySQL Server so.many.times before realizing I need to install Workbench first. Come on, MySQL Documentation peps! Do better!
8. I need to have lower expectations of getting started with new technology. Next time I will give myself a solid 1 day just to install things. Anything else is a plus. If it's working it's worth a celebration.
9. It's really hard to find good tutorials teaching you exactly what you need to know. Especially when I'm at the middle stage like this: every tutorial is either Let's learn JavaScript from start! or Let's use Flask to create template application even though that sucks and no one in the real world actually uses it anyways! or Here's how to use MySQL with no instruction on how to download it because we know if we have to we would struggle too! It took me a solid 5 hours to create a first commit, and now I'm completely exhausted. Mad respect for anyone out there who's trying to learn back end on their own.

Seriously, I am starting to appreciate having guidance/ mentorship so much more now that I'm in the mid-stage, where every tutorial either doesn't exist or is too easy for me. No wonder people say you learn the most in your first internship (maybe except for mine :D). And also high-quality index of good resources. Those are hard to find. And it shouldn't be! If only we are optimizing for the right thing... (I'm talking to you, Google!)

Also a bonus 10, since I was talking with peps at Project Meta today:

10. The text editor experience can be so much better (and tab and shift tab to indent and un-indent makes everything so much easier). Do better, Wordpress!