I enjoyed this article a lot. It has some really good advice on both the beginner and professional sides that I&#x27;ll definitely be keeping in mind going forward.<p>But I think the article, and the comments here, have a bit of a blind-spot: teachers and&#x2F;or mentors. As much as people seem to want to believe that it&#x27;s easy to self-learn programming, the issues brought up in this article are among those that give the lie to that idea. There would be tension in any field if untrained beginners were asking questions in the same forums used by experienced professionals.<p>Questions like &quot;javascript while loop not working&quot; demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding that professional support forums like SO and IRC are not designed to address. Most fields recognize that those sorts of fundamentals are best learned with the support of teachers who can evaluate what is missing in a student&#x27;s mental model and answer questions in a way that builds knowledge. I don&#x27;t see what makes us think our field is so different.