i encountered a lot of bad advice. most of it was from the gatekeepers who, to be honest, don't want you to learn to code.

they don't want you to learn because they have a scarcity mindset. this tells them, daily, that "more coders == lower wages."

and to some degree that's true. maybe one day. but right now, we're good. we need more coders. so the gatekeepers will tell you why you need to know more calculus and how you'll never be great if you didn't study algorithms or get a CS degree.

it's all lies. i rarely do any math. some developers do more math. i often write CSS and design things. some developers only write backend.

if i could do it a second time around, i'd probably do it the same way. if anything i would focus even more on the fundamentals.

it's normal to get "bored" from writing scripts and procedural code. building interfaces and web apps is more fun than the Luhn algorithm. i get it. but when you are building web app, an entire's day work could be 1 file, 80-100 lines of code. and those lines might support a million operations a day.

i can't imagine a scenario where a programmer would regret knowing more fundamentals. at worst, it saves you a few Google queries a day. at best, you invent something the world has never seen.