Comment by ytoawwhra92

I think the author's being a bit hard on themselves.

Vanishingly few people ever learn a new thing optimally. Programming in particular takes years to learn thoroughly enough to get to a level where you can consistently produce quality work. It's normal to have gaps in your knowledge that you realise would've been better to fill earlier in your journey.

Like, there would be plenty of people who spent years studying data structures, algorithms, and other fundamentals who never actually built anything in that time.