The paralysing fear of failure, part I
Tags: codenewbie, programming, testing
Published: 2021-05-16 21:55:07

**I've been a manual tester for over 6 years now. I've been thinking to learn how to program since 2018.** _To take the next step in my testing career._

**Disclaimer: I don't believe that every tester _must_ know how to code to advance in their career**. Testing itself covers so many areas that I don't think knowing how to program is **the only way**. It is just the chosen way **for me**.

As a graduate of language & literature studies, not knowing where to start learning, I first decided to ask for an advice on a Facebook group - [Programuj, dziewczyno](https://www.facebook.com/groups/programujdziewczyno) (Polish is my super power). Back in 2018, I only had an experience in testing desktop applications that was written in the C#/ .NET framework. I even started reading [C# for Dummies](https://www.dummies.com/programming/c-sharp/c-7-0-one-dummies/) book, but I gave up on it rather quickly. 
**However, almost every job advertisement for a software tester position stated "knowledge of Selenium framework".**
I was in between jobs, studying for the ISTQB Foundation Level certificate, which for many companies in Belgium is a must-have; especially for a foreigner, that is not fluent in any of the three official languages. 

**The girls from the group said to try Python**, because it's a beginner-friendly language. 

But where to start? I was being overwhelmed by the information you can find on the Internet. I was watching many videos and reading many articles titled "How to learn how to code" etc. 
I was used to a structure of a school or university course, where you start from some piece of information, and you build your knowledge on top of it, as you go. **In the end, I felt swamped by the information overload**. 

In the meantime, I passed the ISTQB FL exam in Paris (that's a story for another blog post 😅) and found my current job in a governmental institution, where I am testing web applications. 

In 2019, during my daily 2+2 hours long train trips to Brussels from West Flanders, I was surfing the Internet. I came upon a book, one of the _Head First_ series: [Learn to Code: A Learner's Guide to Coding and Computational Thinking](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/head-first-learn/9781491958858/) by Eric Freeman. The book used Python 3 to introduce certain concepts and said that the activities are NOT optional - they’re part of the core content of the book.
I remember enjoyment in writing in [IDLE](https://docs.python.org/3/library/idle.html) **Rock, paper, scissors** game, and later, **Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock**, inspired by [The Big Bang Theory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Q6-wMx-K8&ab_channel=Wozamil). And then I got stuck somewhere on the for / while loops, then on the functions... all the time I was thinking that I just must be not smart enough, if I don't understand such simple concepts. 

In April, I got accepted for a free Selenium 2-day workshop, organized by [Geek Girls Carrots](https://gocarrots.org/) in Wrocław, Poland. **This was my first encounter with Java**.

Then, some months later, on the way home, **my work laptop was stolen** and with it, my miniscule coding progress. I was totally discouraged - I wish I wasn't scared of command prompt and knew how version control worked back then...

***

End of part I.