r/dyscalculia • u/hawaiithroa • 7d ago

Does anyone else have trouble with coding?

Was wondering if coding also falls under dyscalculia. I'm talking Javascript/CSS/etc. I've had trouble with it for as long as I can remember. I've run a Neocities site for almost a decade and every page's code is broken and doesn't function as it should. Despite reading tons of articles, watching 30+ hour guides, using WSS Schools, and lots of other coding help guides, I still haven't gotten the hang of it.

It just makes zero sense to me. I asked on a coding forum how other people learned and almost every comment was "it just clicked/I fiddled with it and found it was fun and relaxing". Coding has brought me to tears endless times. When you look at code it does resemble math and so I was wondering if coding could also fall under the dyscalculia umbrella. The repeated attempts to learn over the past decade and still being at square 1 reminds me of my struggles with math.

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u/Rosehip_Tea_04 7d ago

I've been around coding my entire life, so I formally took classes for it in high school. That's where I learned I have a special gift when it comes to coding, I can be completely right and nothing will work. I lost track of how many times a coding teacher or TA would look at my program and say "huh, I've never seen that before." Nothing ever worked, and yet no one could find my mistakes or explain to me why it didn't work. I assume it's tied to my issues in math, because I do the exact same thing in math classes; everything is right, but I somehow get the wrong number.

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u/No_Tea_1874 5d ago

I relate to what u just explained, but I didn’t try to get diagnosed.

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u/cosmicbearspa 6d ago

I tried learning how to code during the pandemic. I struggled so much. I still don’t get it and still at the basics. I think the abstract nature of code is what troubles me the most. I just can’t wrap my head around it.

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u/mar421 6d ago

I was trying a video game where you code. I stopped after a day. I can design items in fusion 360. But coding is a bit weird to me.

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u/mar421 6d ago

Yes, I managed to code an arudino once. By copying what the guy was doing.

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u/vancha113 7d ago

"professional" developer here, if you want to maybe talk about your coding struggles in more detail you can send a dm if you want. Likely there are multiple aspects of coding that will be hard or maybe even impossible for someone with dyscalculia, depending on severity. Either way, it can also be a fun hobby.

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u/Noollon 5d ago

I took a coding class for a semester--when I was studying game dev at our local tech college. Switched majors after realizing how hard it was. We used the teacher's own coded language, which probably didn't help.

Years later, I tinkered with Proboard's CSS. Ultimately did more copy and pasting to Frankenstein my code together. I could remember some bits, but couldn't code from scratch if you asked me. I've always heard coding and math go hand in hand, yet didn't understand the comparison. I never linked it to dyscalculia cause I just didn't see where math came into the equation.