Breaking free of Impostor Syndrome
Tags: dohackathon, impostorsyndrome
Published: 2020-12-12 20:40:35

---
title: Breaking free of Impostor Syndrome
published: true
tags: dohackathon, impostorsyndrome
series: Flixplore
---
Hey fellow programmers.  

I am that developer who makes a lot of side projects that never make it out of the localhost because not a lot of those projects reach even a useable version. But even those that do will not be deployed.
### Why? 
**Impostor Syndrome**.  I learned this term from programming memes. If you ask me, it's just a programmer's way of saying, **_"I am insecure"_**.  
I've been coding since 2016 and built a bunch of apps and websites for clients. I then went on to co-found [HoomanApp](https://thehooman.app) (flutter app), an application for pet parents. I was able to learn and build all of this because of the community.  
But all this time, I've been only taking from the community. I've used a lot of open-source code in my projects and spent a lot of time on **stackoverflow** and **github** searching for solutions for my issues, like any other developer.  But I never ask questions or raise new issues.  
### Why? 
 - What if my question is so stupid?
 - What if someone downvotes my question?  
 - What if my question is duplicate?  

and a lot of similar questions. 
 
I never made any (significant) contribution to the community. I don't even participate in any active conversations. I don't write blogs or document my journey on any platform. As days passed, it turned into guilt. I felt bad for taking a lot from the community and never returning anything. 

At this time (Q3, 2020), I was quite strong with Flutter and firebase. So one fine day, I made up my mind to go to stackoverflow and answer flutter or firebase related questions. This was my [first answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/62561804/8002326) for flutter on stackoverflow. But I never continued it. It was not until November 2020, that I made it a habit every morning to open flutter tag on stackoverflow and scroll through all the questions and try to help fellow flutter developers. I got my [first answer marked](https://stackoverflow.com/a/65062524/8002326) on 29th, November and that further helped me to break out of the bubble.  
***
A couple of days back, I came across the DOHackathon post. **Perfect timing**. So I thought, why not use this as an opportunity to showcase my projects and blog about them while I build.  
I am so happy to introduce **Flixplore**.  
Flixplore helps you choose a movie to watch when you crave a particular *Genre* or *Language*. It takes in your input for the genre, language, and year of release and suggests random movies that satisfy the criteria. It will be a react SPA with a node backend. The backend will be using the [TMDB API](https://developers.themoviedb.org/3/getting-started/introduction) for the movie data. I am so delighted to deploy my project on the Digital Ocean App Platform.  
I got the idea to build Flixplore when one of my friends asked me to suggest to him a good Hollywood thriller flix to watch. But he had already seen every movie that I suggested. That made me think of this project. I am so excited to build Flixplore and participate in my first ever Hackathon.