Anyone Learn How To Code with ADHD?

[ProblemSolver2911]

Anyone here learn how to code with ADHD? What was your experience like? How did you get passed barriers along the way.

[glitterpidgeon]

Yep. anecdotally I think there are quite a few of us in tech, I hear from a lot of other programmers who also have adhd. Tinkering and problem solving seem to really suit adhd minds

IME Learning to code with adhd is like learning anything else with adhd - the more structure you can get into your learning process the easier it is to stick with it. Best of all worlds is to find or build a good community of people around your project or learning program, so you can help keep each other engaged and accountable.

[rtistics in reply to glitterpidgeon]

I will add to this. Utilize GitHub. If you know what type of programming you are going to do, start cloning open source projects. Take them apart, tweak things, break things, etc. Finding a project that does something like what you want to do and then playing with their code until you figure out how it was done is one of the things that has helped me learn.

[rtistics]

For me it was a combo of patience and finding the instructional method that suited me. YouTube changed my life. About 10 years ago I started watching tutorials and realized that my biggest hurdle was my reading ability. I needed things explained and demonstrated in a way that a book doesn't do.

Fast forward to now. Not only am I a full-time developer, but in 2011 I started my own channel in hopes to teach people in the same way I needed. As my career has grown, my ability to add new content as often has been hindered but I do still make videos.

youtube.com/thedigicraft

[rtistics in reply to rtistics]

Extra note: not all tutorial creators are alike. If you have tried some videos and they don't click with you... Don't get discouraged. It is more than likely that those creators are just not presenting the content they way you need. Keep trying other channels until you find one that clicks.

I have tens of thousands of people that love my videos and just as many that think they suck. My pace and method works for some and irritates others.

[Wildbrain]

I started coding in high school just because I found it so interesting. I could never learn much from books but loved reading code examples, taking example code snippets and building on them. Computers seem to be a bit of a safe haven for ADHDs because they can go unleashed jumping quickly from one thing to the other. I also feel like I have had many occasions of ADHD hyperfocus where I just lost myself in the code for hours.

So I think coding is a natural fit for my ADHD, but that is just because I am naturally very interested in it. If you are not naturally curious about how things work, are analytical, patient and eager to build new things, coding may not be your thing with ADHD or without.

[LZOTD]

My 15 year old son has learned to code and still is. My husband has to.

[ace195011]

Hey ProblemSolver, I am a retired IBM World Systems Programmer, Network Engineer and anything else you want to call me. I have had ADHD all my life with some Aspergers. I worked at the Operating System level in several languages. I started when the Industry was young and open. I think If i was doing it now, I would make sure I had the education first and try to decide what my goals were. Like business programming, web programming or systems type work. You also have to keep in mind it has to be interesting. I loved new and interesting items in IT and hated the rut work . But as I learned the rut work was part of it also.

Feel free to reach out and talk to me , be more than happy to help out.

Scott

[trifit]

I've been coding for a good part of my live (I'm on my early 40s) and I got diagnosed just 2-3 years ago, at least for myself on my field (web development) is the perfect job: - Code reviews: Gives you honest straight to the point feedback on your code)

- Linting tools: Corrects typing mistakes and other code minor issues.

- Unit tests: makes sure you don't break anything by accident.

- Source control: an easy and quick way to go back if a piece of code with errors makes it to a live site.

- Agile methodology: helps breaks complex tasks in smaller accomplishable tasks in 2 week iterations and everything is on writing so I can go back to it whenever I need...

Not everything is perfect (there is a lot of meetings and different distractions) and each person is different (and each person with ADHD is different) but I feel like I'm good at something for first time in my life and I'm not sure I would feel in the same way anywhere else.

Now, as other people stated, you have the interest or curiosity, I've started way to many things because I felt like I should but was never interested to begin with and they where a total lost of time, I can make myself get interest on something that bores me and that is part the nature ADHD .