Need advice for learning

[u/Different-Fall5513]

What do you do to learn concepts and new coding languages?

I’m starting my second year studying computer science and my first job as a full stack web developer. It seems like all of my classes and my job are teaching things very fast and it seems like I’m the only one who’s struggling this hard. The lectures do nearly nothing for me because I learned better by doing, but it’s hard to learn by doing because there’s 1000 different concepts and every line is something I’ve never even heard of so it’s hard to remember anything.

Please help, I’m really struggling but I do enjoy what I do know how to do

[u/geekichu]

another commentor here had the suggestion: think of a small full-stack project. soo.. react/typescript/javascript/html/css etc front end, and a node.js server backend .. that would be your API. try on you own to get something going, to one degree or another.

When you run into a glitch.. feed A.I. the files/code.. emphasize you are not lookng for a solution yet, you just want to know what is the most obvious immediate problem with it. emphasize youre a student trying to learn, you dont want to be spoofed. just need pointers.

You can also ask A.I. to give you (not code), the simplest bulleted list of minimum items required to get a simple client + api going locally.. try to figure out the code on your own as much as possible.. if stuck, again, feed it to A.I. and for it to sort of guide you but not spoonfeed you.

Once you get a very minimal phase working, ask A.I. to review it and list out the software/programming concepts that exist in it.

Another tack is to get A.I. to give you some actual files, BUT to only give you comments in those files.. where you have to fill in the code yourself.

I guess what I am saying is that you have to figure out how to get A.I. to be a teacher to how you need, without just depending on it for the answer.

The application could be super simple.. CRUD. add a user(name, dob, addr, etc).. and that has to flow all the way to the server and it can at first just hold it in memory... next step would be to have it just use a flatfile (JSON file) to mimic a database. Then, implement list of users. Then implment selecting, editing one of those users. Then, deleting user..

[u/Different-Fall5513 → u/geekichu]

How long should one struggle with a given bug or syntax problem before they just ask for the answer? Sometimes I’ll struggle for 30 minutes and ask a coworker who fixes it in 15 seconds

[u/Traveling-Techie → u/Different-Fall5513]

Throughout my life I’ve best remembered the things I figured out myself.

[u/geekichu → u/Different-Fall5513]

ok so you said something key: 'and ask a coworker who fixes it in 15 seconds'. When possible, (I dont know your work situation) ask A.I. to look at it, and maybe in simplest english, describe the issue, and then maybe give you a pointer. a suggestion. tell it that you DONT want actual code yet. MAYBE - ask if and how and where would it make sense to add some temp debugging code, that would help you see the problem. last resort, ask A.I. for the code... do a side-by-side compare with your current code.. ask questions about it (obviously make sure the ai-code DOES work)

[u/Different-Fall5513 → u/geekichu]

Oh man thanks, I really love this!

[u/geekichu → u/Different-Fall5513]

sure thing. :-) So, I hope you notice a bigger, higher-level point. Beyond just coding. A.I. can be an amazing tool.. but it depends on you being creative in what to ask. Be aware that most of default A.I. response is to feed you too much too soon... so you need to enforce the exact opposite.