I'm a fake trans woman, I'm not actually good at programming.
Today I tried to add Titan support to the Gemini server I'm using, Twins. It seemed like a great project to pick up. "Oh," I said to myself, "Oh the protocols for Gemini and Titan are so siiimple! I can totally do this without too much trouble, and maybe even learn something along the way."
Several hours later I am beating my head against the wall, having no fun, and realizing that I actually kind of suck at programming. Low-level programming languages just hurt my brain, I want the hard stuff already abstracted away from me behind an easy interface. I'd never worked with Go before, and I definitely do not understand C at all. So, there we go -- one girl singlehandedly disproves stereotype that all transfems are Programmer Giga-Chads. I could not implement an incredibly simple file transfer protocol.
My heart goes out to all the poor programmers working with full-on Web protocols. Good lord that must be a nightmare. No wonder there's basically only two web servers. (That is, if you want anything more complicated than static content.)
But I think it's important to remind myself that it's absolutely okay to suck at programming. If I keep learning, keep trying to take on projects that I want to see completed, eventually I'll get there. And there's nothing that says someone who sucks at programming can't make useful contributions. We have professionals for a reason, but we can all attain some basic competency and make the world better for it.
Some relevant links from catb.org: