A unique journey

Throughout this chapter you may have noticed that the developer learning curve was smooth. However, that's not reality. The reason why the curve was smooth was because it averaged out the learning path of a large number of individuals. When it comes to a single student, the learning curve looks more like the following graph:

There are ups and downs throughout the learning cycle. As a student, you may decide to switch programming languages after a few years (like I did when I switched from PHP to Ruby around 5 years ago).

Even though you don't have to start back from scratch, it will still take time to learn a new language or framework. And throughout your development journey you'll discover plenty of ups and downs. So, don't get discouraged if you aren't satisfied with your skill level, because I have a secret to tell you: good developers never feel like they've arrived and are done learning.