Stop torturing yourself and look it up already.

I spend everyday at work in README's and scrolling documentation.

I was surprised to find out that the Computer Science degree today sets graduates up to learn the Philosophies of Programming and walks them through Algorithmic Learning. But despite the 4 years of hard work it does not make them any closer to actually building real projects.

I went through Bloc which is an awesome program, only a fraction of what a CS degree cost, and learn the fundamentals of Ruby in 2 weeks. I was in no place to start building any large scale applications, but I had a mentor to push me through the tough parts and also got recommendations of code samples to follow.

At work I am in the very same situation, I can build a small MVP in Rails on my own but in no position to produce the amazing code needed to create an application on my own in a timely manner.

I enjoy the fact that I am surrounded by individuals from very different backgrounds, some with degrees and some without. I enjoy that I am able research programming concepts while at work and discover new tools to make my job easier, which brings me to my main point.

While learning, I found myself doing one of two things when learning or going through code exercises. I seemed to always push myself so hard to learn that I would not look anything up or even think to look at the code of others. If it wasn't my code, I felt as if it was cheating; I know now that it indeed is not cheating, but actually part of the learning process.

My initial thought process was definitely silly now that I look back and now I compare a programmer to an athlete, lets take a Tennis player. There is no doubt that Roger Federer has watch other tennis players and even absorb a bit of their style.

To think that I could be a decent programmer without ever reading the code of others and I believe its not too far off from what others are thinking. I am still working to change that thought process with myself, but thought to write on it as encouragement to myself and others.

My recommendation is to compare code to others and do not be afraid to read the code of others, even if it is for a "code challenge" or an interview. one thing I found while completing the Conways Game of Life for an interview with another company, is that they do not mind if you viewed someone else's code to complete a problem, as long as you can explain what is going on in the code.

Understanding and learning from code is not cheating, but be sure to reference to where you learned so they can get credit and maybe one day people will be sharing your code to learn from.

Now go read some code!