I'm often right there with you. I'm 25 and I often feel like shit because everyone else seems so much smarter and doing much greater things than me.
After feeling miserable about myself for some periods of time I end up meeting some cool people who are in the same line of work and I found that my thoughts were just not true. Honestly, it's close to impossible to know everything about programming like you want to. You probably know far more than a lot of people who are trying to do startups already! No joke! There are people who think knowing HTML and CSS is enough for them to make the next Facebook/Google/whatever.
Then there are always going to be people who know far more than you. Most of those people are here on HN. You can't feel worthless because you're not as good as you think you need to be. You'll never be good enough if you keep thinking this way.
I'm just like you and I was inspired by the community here to start my business and I love it but I still feel like what I've done is total crap compared to what a lot of folks here are doing. That's okay. The thing about programming is that you need to break things up into manageable chunks. It sounds like you're trying to do too much at once. One feature at a time. One database call, one AJAX request, one link to a CSS file at a time. Go slowly, work your way up and one day you'll look back and be amazed that all those tiny incremental implementations added up to this one huge app or whatever you're trying to build.
Remember too that everyone specializes in something. You know CRUD apps. Other guys know design. Others are generalist. You know what we all have in common? Everyone copy/pastes code from online from time to time! It doesn't mean you're not a programmer. It just means you haven't learned one specific part of programming yet. Honestly, working your way up from those stupid Hello World examples is the way to go.
I wrote a lot because I often feel just like you and I know how much it sucks. It's okay. There are so many people out there who would be astonished at what you know already that you wouldn't believe. When you hang around HN you're hanging with the best of the best and you don't want to be comparing yourself with them just yet. Be inspired, learn as much as you can but remember that there is so much to learn that you'll be learning to program until the day you die. My best advice would be to focus on one single skill you want at a time and work your way up from the damn Hello World examples even though I know it seems like you know enough to skip them. They will help.
Good luck to you, man. Feel free to get in touch by email, maybe you and I can build something cool together and prove yourself wrong about not being a real programmer.
After feeling miserable about myself for some periods of time I end up meeting some cool people who are in the same line of work and I found that my thoughts were just not true. Honestly, it's close to impossible to know everything about programming like you want to. You probably know far more than a lot of people who are trying to do startups already! No joke! There are people who think knowing HTML and CSS is enough for them to make the next Facebook/Google/whatever.
Then there are always going to be people who know far more than you. Most of those people are here on HN. You can't feel worthless because you're not as good as you think you need to be. You'll never be good enough if you keep thinking this way.
I'm just like you and I was inspired by the community here to start my business and I love it but I still feel like what I've done is total crap compared to what a lot of folks here are doing. That's okay. The thing about programming is that you need to break things up into manageable chunks. It sounds like you're trying to do too much at once. One feature at a time. One database call, one AJAX request, one link to a CSS file at a time. Go slowly, work your way up and one day you'll look back and be amazed that all those tiny incremental implementations added up to this one huge app or whatever you're trying to build.
Remember too that everyone specializes in something. You know CRUD apps. Other guys know design. Others are generalist. You know what we all have in common? Everyone copy/pastes code from online from time to time! It doesn't mean you're not a programmer. It just means you haven't learned one specific part of programming yet. Honestly, working your way up from those stupid Hello World examples is the way to go.
I wrote a lot because I often feel just like you and I know how much it sucks. It's okay. There are so many people out there who would be astonished at what you know already that you wouldn't believe. When you hang around HN you're hanging with the best of the best and you don't want to be comparing yourself with them just yet. Be inspired, learn as much as you can but remember that there is so much to learn that you'll be learning to program until the day you die. My best advice would be to focus on one single skill you want at a time and work your way up from the damn Hello World examples even though I know it seems like you know enough to skip them. They will help.
Good luck to you, man. Feel free to get in touch by email, maybe you and I can build something cool together and prove yourself wrong about not being a real programmer.