When I first started in development I was in college. One of the first languages that I was learning was C#. I had no clue what a return statement was except that it was making my method stop. There was code below this damning return statement and I was so sure that this section of code should be running. I was sure of it.

When this took place I had just learned about StackOverflow. It had helped me with other issues and I was sure that it could help me here. Previously, I had only used other contributors questions to come up with solutions for my problem. This time I wanted to contribute my own question. (Can you see where this is going?)

I had so much joy in contributing my question, "Why does the return statement end my method?". Ten plus years later this question seems so naive and if I had looked in my textbook I would have found the answer, but nevertheless I was proud to contribute to community.

As you might guess there were very few responses back to my question. There was one that I am still recovering from to this day. Not in a it caused me to tailspin out of joining the development community way but rather a caution when posting online kind of way. The response was a sarcastic, snarky response when boiled down came with this message.

That's what it is supposed to do, newbie. Asking dumb questions gets dumb responses.

While this is harmless and I have a successful career in development it has kept me from posting online for all these years. I was so proud to contribute when I got this answer it defeated me in letting my voice be heard in the community.

Most recently, I had left a comment on a post here on dev.to, one of the first since I was in college. I found myself thinking the comment was negative towards me when in reality it wasn't, it was actually helpful. I am realizing that I placed the pain of the encounter ten plus years ago on this helpful commentator. That was not fair to them.

So, now that story time is over I have a few questions for you.

1. Have you experienced a similar situation and have not joined into the conversation of development online/in-person?

2. If so, have you overcome that fear and feeling of defeat? How?

3. How can we help younger developers join in the conversation and let their voice be heard in the community?

Let's discuss below.