How to stop being dependent on someone else to solve my problems?

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So, I’m a 2.5 years experienced Software Developer and currently preparing for coding interviews mostly from Cracking the Coding Interviews. Many times, it happens that I don’t understand a solution from the book and also from searching the Internet. In those situations, I usually consult one of my seniors, who is working in a big product based MNC. He is a good person and usually helps me but due to my so much questioning (regarding advice) on so much topics, he seems to get irritated by my behavior and nowadays responds either sarcastically or by just one-word answer.

I have decided to stop being dependent on him and become a person who will solve all his problems by himself. So, can anyone advice me on how do I find the solutions of whatever problems I face either in coding or life on my own (using my mind) without asking anyone for help?

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The only thing I can think of is practice. The more you work through problems, even with some help from folks like us, the easier it will be to solve problems solo in the future.

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My advice here is the same as the advice that we all give brand new students: make the problem smaller until it is something that you can solve, then expand it. When you go to someone for help (your colleague, this forum, etc), try to do so when you can articulate a specific question.

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I usually don’t like to be the one who brings you bad news, but if that’s how you really are then I’m sorry you won’t land a job any time soon, or if you do get lucky and land one you’ll get yourself and probably your employer in a lot of trouble, I have 6 years experience in programming in general, and I had/still have people like you in my life, and it’s the most annoying thing ever, they expect you to always give them the right answer and if you get it wrong they’ll get mad and blame you, I’m usually a lot more positive than this but I’m sorry this field might not be for you.

but if you really want to improve then I would probably recommend hackerone and codewars, it really helped me a lot, also you should do problem solving on your phone like I still do to this day, play chess, binary puzzles, and generally logic puzzles it’ll improve your memory and your abilities to solve various problems in life, it might be boring at first but you’ll get used to it, and also make a daily routine for yourself as this will help clear your mind a lot, DON’T DRINK COFFEE, coffee will have an opposite effect if you consume it daily, drink juice or even better
drink water while coding to stay hydrated.

and seriously this will actually help you a lot, and also you need to build self confidence and have a strong personality or when you work in teams you will suffer, and you also need to have a very positive attitude or risk getting fired or worse get yourself into useless rants and arguments online.

and you need to read the documentation, read the documentation of the technology you’re using as much as you can, download it on your phone and read it in your free time, I’m not saying memorize it, I’m just saying you should know where to exactly look if you get stuck,

and also you need to learn how to use google to your advantage, I can guarantee you that google has probably saved countless programmers from getting fired or worse asking that one arrogant friend who laughs at you every time you ask him to help you out.

it really helps a lot to minimize time loss and increase the time you spend on problem solving and programming.

and also FCC forum is really good, you shouldn’t be ashamed to ask your questions here, people here are awesome, probably the best programming forum out there.

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Oof. That’s really harsh. Way too harsh. You are trying to be more independent and that is good. We all start out needing help, and that’s perfectly OK. Even experienced devs need to talk to others; that’s why we develop software in teams!

You are aware that you want to be more independent and you are working on it, and that is a good thing!

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how do i reply to questions on this forum

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in the way you are doing
each post has a reply button if you are replying to a specific post, or there is a reply button to the thread at the end of the thread

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I want to ask you why do you go to this person? Is it because they know exactly what your asking about, and or specialize in whatever your having problems for, or just recently went over it themselves? I would guess probably not. The idea a “senior” person will have walked the same path as you, and knows how to solve your problem is probably false.

As one of those people who are in those shoes from time to time (a “senior” that gets asked questions about stuff I have 0 clue about) I’d say that person does get annoyed. Its not that your doing anything wrong by asking them, but rather that you feel like you need to ask them, even though your probably asking them about stuff they don’t really care about.

There’s a difference between thinking one person knows everything, and finding the person for anything. Say you have a problem with some basic question with a generic error. Asking the world probably wont get you more than replies of what people just google themselves. This brings you back to the question of why go out and ask for direct help in those situations? Yes it could net you information initially, but who says you can’t find that information yourself?

I personally believe every problem you will run into is already solved by someone somewhere, you just need to find it. I also believe asking someone for help is usually not the best path to learning, as it usually assumes the person your asking actually knows something about the subject. Obviously if the person your asking does know the subject specifically, IE wrote the code themselves or something, it makes sense to ask them to a degree.

Regardless of who you ask, for what, or how, the best way to learn is to do. Grinding out a problem yourself by yourself for yourself is how you gain the most knowledge the quickest. Failure is the best teacher, and failure is easy to achieve by yourself. Asking for help will give you solutions, but it wont give you experience of failing over yourself to find that solution.

The internet has all the answers, you just need to know how to find them. (Google-fu). Understanding the problem your actually having and being able to boil that problem down is key.

For example searching:

Nodejs code doesn’t work

Is a terrible, and you wont find any answers to whatever your having problems with.

Node.js heap out of memory

Is far more specific, and will give you more relevant answers.

Good-luck and keep failing, and keep learning!

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@OussamaBouchareb thanks for your answer. Actually I’m not that bad a programmer. In my organization, I’m among one of the best. I think that there’s a huge difference in the way of solving the problems which we face in office compared to what we face in programming interviews, especially DS and Algo questions and I am talking specifically about the latter one. I want to be a good programmer and will become one!!!

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One my strengths and (weakness) in life has been my ability solve problems and I’ll say this as an universal principle that extends passed coding. I just got stuck on a problem and obsess about the answer no matter how long it takes. Even if someone gives me an answer for the sake of time constraints I’ll always double back and try to answer the question in detail. I had a project a few weeks ago where I had to go to help and get a template code for the sake of a deadline but I doubled back and learned how to do it on my own. That investment after the fact exploded my ability to think critically over the course of my next few projects to the point I don’t ask how to do it but more so what’s the most efficient route to do it just in case I have faulty thinking in my approach. Basically, i’m saying there’s nothing wrong with getting help and answers but make sure you go back and reason for the answer yourself. In fact one of my mentors use to say sometimes the best way to learn is to have the a question, have the Answer and you work out the ugly waters of the middle and road to the answer

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