Sure -- it is difficult. So is learning anything and becoming good at it. You just have to put in a lot of work like you do with anything else you are trying to learn and you'll get there. Here are all the tips I can come up with:

• Make sure that you are enjoying it. Everyone likes different things, some people enjoy programming and others don't. This is why every article arguing about whether designers should dev or vice versa is stupid. You should write code if you enjoy writing code. If you don't, you should spend your time doing things you enjoy. I enjoy both design and code, so I do both. I'm not the same as everyone though, and there are tons of things I don't like and don't do.

• Don't be afraid of errors. Getting boatloads of errors and messing up all the time is part of coding. Even when you are a professional, the amount of errors you get doesn't go down much. The only thing that changes is how quickly you can fix them. What makes me a good developer is the speed and accuracy with which I can debug code, not how accurately I can write code in the first place.

• Learn by doing. You can read as many books and take as many tutorials as you want but they will teach you nothing without context. You need to actually write code and make stuff and mess up and fix your messups to learn. Code academy and shit like that does not count. I'm talking about blank text editor, raw html, empty page development. Intimiadating? Sure. But it's the only way to learn right. After you have tried to make stuff and messed up, then read and understand. With the context already laid down, reading and learning about what you have been doing will feel so good, and things will click into place like "oh, that's why that went wrong!"

• Understand things you are working on fully. This is what makes you able to quickly fix errors, when you understand what you are doing exactly and can spot what's going wrong and understand why. Don't use shit like bootstrap or ruby on rails that generates code for you and pushes important things under the hood. Learn by thorough, explicit understanding of every part of what you are working on.

• Don't spin your wheels. If you are stuck on something, think about why it might have gone wrong and try a couple things. Don't look it up on stack overflow, then paste some code you found there and hope it works, or just try changing numbers or writing in random methods. This is what I call "paste and pray". If you ever find yourself pasting and praying, STOP. While it might end up solving the problem if you are super lucky, it will probably be solving it the wrong way, but what's worse is that you are learning nothing from it since you were just guessing randomly. If you are spinning your wheels and don't understand an error, it's because you don't understand the system you are working with fully. Figure out what the underlying issue is and use that knowledge to solve the problem. Often times that means asking someone more experienced than yourself to explain it to you. Thinkful is a good program to get you a mentor, so is Airpair if you have some cash you're willing to spend.

• Don't start out with full web apps. To write a web app, you need a deep understanding of databases, query languages, the http protocol, the fundamentals of programming, the way at least one full programming language works, the MVC pattern, html, css, and javascript. That is an enormous stack of knowledge. Students take literally years of college courses to try to absorb that much knowledge. Start simple. HTML and CSS. That's it. Once you have mastered html and css (meaning you could make any page layout in a way you're confident is clean and responsive), then move on to javascript. Then from there move into the back end. It's a long journey, you need to be patient and genuinely enjoy it.

• Try to get paid for work as quickly as possible. It doesn't matter how little it is. Get $100 to make a website for your Uncle's small business. The sooner you can get paid work the better. Not because you will be making tons of money but because you have to complete it, and it's for serious. For perspective, I won't make even a basic website for less than $2500, there is a huge market of people who don't want super high end work and are willing to pay you a little to get something decent while you learn.

• Don't ever use angular. Always stay away from it. People will tell you it's great and popular and you will be tempted to check it out. Do not do this. Ingrain it into the back of your brain that you should not use angular or it will be your doom, and never give that up. There are many tools you can use that accomplish the same goals as angular that are not bullshit. It will be a very long time before you are ready to start thinking about these tools, when you do feel ready let me know and I'll guide you right, promise.