Often, looking into a completely different direction is helpful. Ask yourself what you enjoy doing, apart from programming and computers. It could be cooking, gardening, talking to people, writing, teaching, whatever. Something that is not stressful for you to do. Something your friends maybe told you at one time or the other you’re good at without having to put great effort in it. Something that doesn’t drain you if you’re doing it for extended periods of time. Often that’s where you can find what’s truly important to you and your inherent skills are. Go from there. Let yourself be inspired. Those could be technical or entirely apart from what you’re currently doing.

When you start looking into unconventional jobs, you’ll be astonished what kind of work exists within reach. It often just looks like it isn’t because you’d have to leave your comfort zone to pursue them. That’s the issue with comfort zones: even if you feel like shit, it’s a familiar feeling. As humans, we tend to go with what we know, even if it leads to constantly feeling terrible. This way, we can at least make sense of what surrounds us. Going into the unknown is scary, sometimes it feels like mortal danger.

If you can afford it, take a sabbatical to clear your head. If you have a partner, talk to them about what you’re going through.

I'm skeptical of the idea that you're not smart enough. In my experience, becoming a good programmer requires some relatively low-threshold capacity for logical thinking combined with a tenacity for debugging and understanding how things work. Being a genius who picks up math and CS concepts quickly is far from required.

If you struggle with patterns and applications but are bored by simple CRUD apps then it may be the case that you just don't like programming that much. That would certainly make it very difficult to learn and retain anything.

Overall though, you sound more depressed than anything. If that is the case then it colors all perception of what you enjoy or don't enjoy, and probably should be addressed directly before making any major career decisions.

Separate from that - it sounds like you need to decide whether this is really something you want to do professionally. Technology is a vast field, so even if you decide you don't feel good about being a software developer / programmer, that's not to say there isn't a place for you.

Finally, I'm reading between the lines that you are primarily self-taught. Perhaps what's really needed for you to reach a level of comfort is simply more education?

I figured that I will work on what I like rather than what is or will be 'cool' after 4 years of this struggle. There were humanitarian projects I had thought of as a junior in college that never saw the light of day. I have begun those. It makes me happy to work on things that I want to work on, rather than what can become a great business. At least that's a start. I have started thinking in terms of how can I deliver a great product to my users from the idea I have and love.

Don't get me wrong, I am still learning. I have to make a mental note every hour of the day to not compare, not get distracted. My physical therapist told me that one has to make a mental note of their posture. That is termed as "body mechanics". I think that that goes with our minds too. You have to keep training yourself to stay positive by little tricks like avoiding comparison, recognizing what you want to do and accepting reality etc.

Maybe not the best advice but my 2 cents.

Good luck!

Copy pasting code is a start, as long as you understand the code, but it's good that you moved past that. You're still young, so if you want to be a programmer you're in a good position to improve. You can read some books, learn best practices, design patterns, depending on your programming language of choice studying for a certification will give a solid foundation and confidence. Then you can build something with everything you've learned.

I suggest you try to disassociate your quest to learn to program from your dissatisfaction with your current job. Maybe you can learn enough about software development to change careers but you're putting an immense amount of pressure on yourself to learn, which may make it harder.

Now, for programming - I suggest you consider working through some online tutorials. Pick a free tutorial on the web or in a book which is a beginner lesson. Start with something complex enough to feel like you've achieved something, but easy enough where you won't give up. If you get stuck - ask questions on StackOverflow.com or another online support forum. If you know someone who can program, ask them for their help. The early days of learning to program are very easy to get bogged down in the tools you need to configure to get things working, or the syntax nuances where an errant symbol leave what you're working on entirely broken. This is entirely normal, and while it's frustrating -- when you eventually figure out what's wrong, you're actually learning to program.

Good luck! And if you do feel depressed, please consider talking to a professional qualified to help you navigate those feelings. Work can be challenging, no matter what you're doing, but taking the initiative to ask for help from others should be commended.

Just trying to say, learning is not always fun. Get a job doing something you don't know how to do. Maybe that will motivate you. :)

I have to admit I'm rather relieved reading your post because at least I'm not the only one who is rapidly developing an inferiority complex here ;)

For my part, I'm 28 with a Philosophy degree and currently in a junior role at a late stage startup. I'm not a developer, more like "guy who hacks together Perl and queries MySQL all day".

So, you at least have an edge on me - for what little that's worth! In fact, stepping back to take stock of what you do in fact have might help. I realize it's not much consolation to know you're neither homeless, politically oppressed or living in a war zone - but keeping that perspective has helped me through some moments of self-doubt and pity.

I totally know what you're saying about having no excuses with all the free and accessible information out there. Believe it or not, I find the plethora of choice a little crippling in its own way. When I spend 5 weeks debating which language to learn, and 5 days actually trying to learn a language - there's clearly something wrong!

I don't know where you are in your life, but it might be worth considering a bold leap. I've seen a few programming boot camps promoted here on HN - one in the Bay Area and the other in Chicago. If you're between jobs, this might be something to consider.

Dev Bootcamp : http://devbootcamp.com/apply

Code Academy : http://codeacademy.org/

I know how incredibly difficult it is to find the time and motivation to work on a side project. In fact, if you're looking for a learning partner - I'd certainly welcome it. I'm currenly interested in the following : Python, Perl, Django, Dancer, Ruby, Groovy, Rails/Grails, JS, coffeescript, design principles, NoSQL, Big Data, Hadoop. I can be reached @ esoteric.doktrin at gmail.

Good luck - keep calm and carry on, as they say.

Ontop of all this I'm broke no money and I'm 25. I want to make something of myself I want a career in Web development but have no mentor or guidance on where to start. I tried applying for bootcamp but can't do the coding challenges.

What do I do? I'm tired of minimum wage jobs. I want decent money.

For the past 14 years I've run my own web dev company but I understood my limitations and hired people who are actually good at coding and I've stuck to what I'm good at.

From what you write, there doesn't appear to be a passion for coding - avoiding assignments & now struggling with core constructs point to that. But something at some point got you into this field - perhaps there's something to the side that might suit your skills/passion more? Testing, QA, project management, client management, business analysis... there's lots of roles that benefit of understanding programming concepts that don't rely on you actually being a gun programmer.

- I realised I was a mediocre programmer

- ... (I) find that my desire is driven by fear ...

The first is a good feeling :-) Too many programmers don't have this realisation. Embrace it!

The second is something that worries me slightly. All of the programmers that I know who are driven by fear let it chase them into failure. Getting the "joy of tinkering back" is what you need. Forget the "ever changing rules". Chase what you love and forget about the rest.

Now for some specific advice. You are at a level now where you need to integrate your knowledge, not learn bits and pieces. Stop everything else you are doing and start a major project that will occupy your time for the next year or so. It doesn't matter what it is, only that it is something you love. This will help you more than anything else.

I got into programming for the money and because I like problem solving and concrete results. I honestly think it would be perfect match if I had +10 IQ points. As for your suggestion, I wouldn't know where to begin looking for things "on the side" as you put it.

Long version: Same situation as you 6 years ago. Quit "safe", salaried job to work on freelance projects. But eventually realized that most freelance projects too are the CRUD type. Quit that too.

Then I found that fields like computer vision, speech recognition, space exploration and embedded systems still have many many unsolved problems, and require proficiency in theoretical subjects like linear algebra and algorithms, hands on challenges involving electronics and mechanical engineering, and practical software development problems like performance optimization. Every time I learn something in these fields, my mind bursts with new ideas and makes me explore and do more. It's an expanding spiral of unsolved problems. I don't think one lifetime is enough to solve my own ideas, let alone rest of the world's. It's a complete turnaround from how I felt 6 years ago.

Now I enjoy exploring and building my own projects and ideas, and have redeveloped my love for all kinds of programming - low level systems programming , desktop app programming, mobile app programming, even web programming.

I also learnt electronics on my own and thoroughly enjoy my hobby electronics projects.