The Struggle Is Real: Confessions of a Python Developer

Hey fellow developers 👋

People often see the final product — a neat Flask app, a clean API, or a fancy ML model — and assume everything just worked. But the truth is… it didn’t. 😅

Behind every polished GitHub repo lies a graveyard of bugs, Stack Overflow searches, and late-night debugging sessions with cold coffee in hand. ☕💻

Today, I want to share a few honest confessions from my journey as a Python developer. If you relate to even one of these… welcome to the club. 🫡

1. I Still Google “Python list sort descending” Every Time

Let’s be real — nobody remembers all the syntax.

python
numbers = [3, 1, 5, 2]
sorted_numbers = sorted(numbers, reverse=True)

Simple, right? But my brain refuses to store this.

Every. Single. Time.

I open my browser like: “sort list python descending site:stackoverflow.com”.

And that’s okay. Even experienced devs Google the same things over and over.

2. The Indentation Monster Always Wins

Python is beautiful… until you copy-paste code from somewhere else. One wrong space, and suddenly:

IndentationError: unexpected indent

And there you are — staring at your terminal, counting spaces like some ancient mathematician.

Tabs vs spaces? Don’t even get me started. 🙃

3. Virtual Environments Confused Me for Months

When I started out, venv felt like dark magic. Why do I need to “activate” something to install packages? Why are my imports not working here but working there? 😵

Now it’s second nature, but in the beginning, I broke more environments than I created. RIP venv_test_4_final_FINAL.

4. Debugging Flask Routes at 2 AM

There’s a special kind of pain when your Flask route returns a 500 error and gives you no clue why.

You print variables, restart the server 10 times, question your life choices, and then find out it was a missing slash in the route. 🤦‍♂️

@app.route('/login')  # not '/login/'
def login():
    return "Login Page"

One tiny detail. Two hours of your life. Gone.

5. Dependency Hell is Real

You update one library. Suddenly, three other libraries break. You downgrade something. Now your code runs, but nothing else does.

Welcome to dependency hell, where pip install becomes a gamble and Poetry starts to look like salvation.

6. Sometimes I Feel Like an Impostor

Even after building cool stuff, there are days I feel like I know nothing. I see complex projects online and wonder if I’ll ever get there.

But then I look back at my old code, and I see progress. Slow, painful, but real progress. 🐍

7. And Yet... I Love It

Despite all the confusion, bugs, and frustrations, there’s nothing quite like that “It works!” moment.

The feeling when your script finally runs without errors. When your Flask app serves that first page. When your ML model predicts something correctly.

That’s why we keep going. 💪

Final Thoughts

Being a Python developer isn’t just about writing code. It’s about embracing the struggle, laughing at your own mistakes, and growing a little bit every day.

So if you’re stuck, frustrated, or questioning yourself — you’re not alone. We’ve all been there, and honestly… we still go there often. 😄

Keep going. Your future self will thank you. 🫶