It says quite a bit that when I got started coding (with minimal access to the internet) and not much experience understanding "cryptic" error messages, I was able to compile the Linux kernel and bootstrap gcc without a native compiler on Solaris.
My day job used to mostly be Python. It can be a confusing ecosystem. I teach it to students and I can see the trouble they have. Other languages are different. With C projects, I can mostly get them to work. In fact, it's not too hard to even compile nodeJS from scratch. I've even had some amount of luck fumbling in the dark with languages I'm not familiar with to submit pull requests.
Javscript is a whole different ballgame though and I fully sympathise with John. It's very counter intuitive and even when I've been in the thick of it, I've had to squint quite a bit to make sense of how the ecosystem operated.
My day job used to mostly be Python. It can be a confusing ecosystem. I teach it to students and I can see the trouble they have. Other languages are different. With C projects, I can mostly get them to work. In fact, it's not too hard to even compile nodeJS from scratch. I've even had some amount of luck fumbling in the dark with languages I'm not familiar with to submit pull requests.
Javscript is a whole different ballgame though and I fully sympathise with John. It's very counter intuitive and even when I've been in the thick of it, I've had to squint quite a bit to make sense of how the ecosystem operated.