I’m trying to learn programming and something I struggle with the most is trying to separate code mentally into chunks where I can think through the problem. I’m not really sure how to describe it other than when I read a function to determine what it does then go to the next part of the code I’ve already forgotten how the function transforms the data and I get stuck trying to figure out the solution. So instead I’ll often cludge something together just to make it work but I don’t feel like I made any progress. Has anybody else run into this issue where they struggle with abstracting code from text to mental instructions?
Edit: Thank you all for the suggestions and advise. I wish I could reply to everyone but there’s been a lot of good information given and I have some ways now to try and train my brain to think about how to break down the code. It’s also a little reassuring knowing I’m not the first to have these same struggles.
It’s a lot to take in at first, but the problem isn’t that you’re really doing something wrong or that you’re lacking some piece of information. You just need to actually write more code. It will help you understand why something is set up the way that it is, and also help things make a lot more sense. Once you have that foundation of experience, a lot of other things fall into place on their own for lack of a better explanation. In other words: practice makes perfect
How long would you say it took you before getting a fundamental understanding? I ask because I’ve been at this on and off for years but I always end up quitting because after a few months I just don’t see any progress happening. I’m still forgetting things I learned 3 or even 4 times like how to do a for each loop.
But as you said it just takes practice. I’ve tried to find challenges that I could do and everything is just so overwhelming I have idea where to start. I see tutorials say to make a tic tac toe game or a calculator or to contribute to open source code. Which is good I suppose but all of it feels too advanced and I get lost on how to begin. For reference I’m currently learning html, css, and JavaScript. Advent of code was okay when I tried but once I got past the first handful of challenges it quickly went way over my head with sorting algorithms and how to make maps out lists for the elves to move or whatever.
I’m still forgetting things I learned 3 or even 4 times like how to do a for each loop.
I have been programming for decades now and still have to look up how an if statement works in bash - or other similar things, especially when switching between languages. It takes 5 seconds to look up and remember so I would not bother worrying about it. Far better to know when you need to use an if or for loop and quickly look up the syntax then to know the syntax but not when to use it.
I see tutorials say to make a tic tac toe game or a calculator or to contribute to open source code. Which is good I suppose but all of it feels too advanced and I get lost on how to begin.
Break problems down into simpler problems, then break those down into simpler problems until you have a trivial problem you can solve. Then build up from there. Like take a tic tac toe game - lots of things to consider that can all be dealt with in isolation. Like rendering the game to the screen, that is one problem you can start with, and can be broken down even further to maybe how to draw a grid to the screen, which again can be broken down to how to draw a box or line.
You might even want to look at the book " Think Like a Programmer: An Introduction to Creative Problem Solving by V. Anton Spraul" which goes into this way of thinking in more detail.
How long would you say it took you before getting a fundamental understanding?
I would say years, as with any complex activity.
I’m still forgetting things I learned 3 or even 4 times like how to do a for each loop.
You can forget in 2 different ways:
- Forget how to use something, so you need to look how to do it.
- Forget that something exists, so you cannot even look for it because you are not aware it’s a possibility.
You will forget-1 everything which you don’t use on a daily basis. That’s what internet is for. Forgetting in the 2-nd sense is much more rare and you should do something if that’s the case.
all of it feels too advanced and I get lost on how to begin
This is a bias most of us have, you overlook how easy is for you to do things that previously were impossible and focus on how hard are the things you still don’t know how to do. And computing is so complex right now that there always be “infinite” things you don’t know.
Try showing what you know to someone who doesn’t know how to code and you will get an idea of how much you have learnt :).
Anyway, I don’t really have good advice :/, just wanted to confirm that what you feel is expected. Good luck!
I’ll often cludge something together just to make it work but I don’t feel like I made any progress
That’s a good first step! I’ve been programming for ~25 years and that’s still usually where I start. Get a little code that compiles and produces some kind of output or tracing. Then compare the output to your requirements and tweak the code to get it closer to the right behavior. Run it and repeat till it’s doing what you want. Do this cycle with small changes, like a handful of lines or a short function, not 20 mins of coding at a time.
Test-driven development can also help with breaking down tasks. It takes a good amount of practice to learn the right patterns, but it’s an approach that forces you to work with small narrowly scoped tasks. Then you chain those testable tasks together to create more complex behaviors to create robust testable code.
Experience takes time. Junior developers frequently ask me after I’ve helped them “but how did you just know how to do that? I’ve been trying to solve that for an hour and you did it in 10 seconds!!” The answer is because I’ve solved that exact problem before. More than a few times.
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Her is my take to try to help you.
If it’s your own code, you can add docstrings comments to your functions, so you don’t have to re-read the function body everytime. Also, name functions to be understandable more easily when possible.
If not your code, write on a piece of paper (not on computer) the in and out of a function, maybe like so:
[1,2,3] -> (sum function) -> 6Then, you can even connect the functions together and see the whole algorithm:
[1,2,3] -> (sum) -> (multiplyBy2) -> (...) -> final_resultWhen projects get more complex, paper will not cut it, then some note taking app of some sort will help. (logseq could help, but some mind mapping or sequence diagram programs would help as well)
Also, I don’t know what language your are working with, but learning LISP (maybe clojure) could help.
Why? Because you have to connect your functions together, and it forces you to do so.
At first, it might be harder compared to what you’re used to, but it’ll give you better fundations to keep learing.You might be trying to hold too many details in your head at once. Once you’ve read a function, try to reframe it in a simpler and easier way; for example, instead of remembering all the steps it makes, just remember what goes in and what comes out (and any side effects). This will let you think about how different functions interact, not just different lines of code.
Write it down when you figure something out. Draw arrows to it from some other part you figured out. Scratch it out when you realize you had it wrong and then put the arrows to a new place where you doodle how it actually works. Never look at the notes again.
Is this with your own code or someone else’s? It’s always harder to understand someone else’s code (at least at first). Everyone thinks and writes in a different way.
In either case, I think you could benefit from stepping through the code in a debugger. Depending on what the code is, give some data as input where you know/can guess what the output is. Using the debugger, step through each line to see what happens to the data. It can help break down long or complicated functions into simpler chunks.
Recognition of functions or snippets of code will come through repetition and exposure. Writing code helps more than reading as well. Even with all of that, it’s still okay and common to have to look things up or review. I constantly have to check the syntax of C++ library functions, like snprintf, which I have used but not enough to memorize (and that’s okay). Don’t be discouraged. I’ve been in my career for 11 years now, around 9 of which is working with embedded C++, and I still feel like an imposter.
Difficult concepts are made of simple parts. Find the parts. Find ways to play with them.
Example: TCP/IP performance is complicated, but you can look at specific parts of it like packet latency, retransmission behavior, and the various timeouts. Eventually you understand the “gears” of the system well enough that it’s obvious that if the minimum retransmission timeout is 100msec, that a single packet loss means your whole transaction cannot possibly have <100msec latency.
That is exactly what I’m struggling with the most. When it gets broken down like the way you explained it, I can sort of wrap my head around it. But if nobody is there to do that for me I end up confusing myself
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