From most communities I have participated in, the Julia community has always stood out.
Before learning Julia, I was a game programmer (I wouldn’t call myself a game developer since the only thing I loved in game development was programming 
) for about a year, mostly using Godot 4. But at some point, I felt unsatisfied with just making games. I wanted to go deeper, so I decided to build my own engine—mainly because, as a game lover, it felt like the ultimate level of game programming. That’s mostly why I started this journey.
I primarily chose Julia because it’s cool, has a nice syntax, and is performant.
But to be honest, when I first saw Julia Discourse…
I felt extremely dumb 
.
Even though I had read multiple programming books, practiced many patterns, and completed several projects, I couldn’t help but feel inadequate. The community seemed full of scientists, senior programmers, and more.
I won’t lie—if I had been just a regular beginner (and hadn’t already worked so much with Julia), I probably would have felt like I didn’t belong there 
.
But as time passed, instead of running away, I decided to ask questions. And honestly, this turned out to be one of the most welcoming communities I’ve ever seen (even though almost everyone was way ahead of me).
Even with all the silly beginner mistakes I made, there was always someone willing to help or point me in the right direction.
Being surrounded by competent people seems to have made me more competent too. Looking back at everything I’ve done over the past year, I think it’s pretty insane for someone who has only been programming for two years.
Now that I’m starting university, I would like to thank the community for how much it has helped me grow.
I think that for an 18-year-old, I’ve already learned a lot—from the time when LLVM IR felt like some kind of magic reserved for seniors, to now, when I already understand assembly.
I don’t think that if I had chosen another programming language, I would have learned so much so quickly.
So I just want to say thank you to everyone in the community. People like you are what make the Julia community such a great place to learn and grow 
.