this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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Programming

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As a beginner, how should I go about learning difficult concepts? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Nommer@sh.itjust.works to c/programming@programming.dev
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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.

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[โ€“] fubo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] Nommer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

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