[jjaredsimpson]

It's key to include false starts and promising paths that dead end. Learning to explore unknown solution spaces and refine the domain of the problem itself are critical skills in any open ended problem.

Spending an entire school lifetime being taught to "solve" "problems" and then being confronted with a world where problems aren't defined and solutions are ad-hoc and piecemeal is a rude awakening.

The strategies that made us a good students and made us feel good and smart in school aren't the same strategies that make for a good employee and those strategies set new devs up to fail when they can't "see the answer" to the current jira ticket they are tasked with.

[hi41]

It clearly did me in. It made me very sad that I could not write code to problems I have not seen before. I still haven't learned the mental skills necessary to face open problems with a curious mind. My first reaction to new problems is fear and anxiety to the extent I had to leave development entirely. I now do production support which is not what I intended to do. I wanted be a great developer.