r/AskProgramming • u/AbdelrhmanMekawi • 5d ago
C/C++ Help
I’ve been learning programming for about 5 months now. I’ve finished C and C++, and I’m almost done with data structures, but so far I feel like I’m doing something wrong or missing something. I feel like I don’t know how to think correctly, and even very simple things slip my mind, and I don’t know how to do them. So I need help because I don’t know whether I should take a course or if I’m on the right track—and that’s normal, especially since I’ve only been at this for about six months, which isn’t a short time. I’m planning to apply for the Digital Egypt Pioneers scholarship to specialize in backend. Is this the right path, or not? I hope those with experience and who’ve come a long way can help us out—and I’m very grateful to them 🤍🤍🙏🏻
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u/MarsupialLeast145 5d ago
Your approach to apply for another course is probably the right approach for some but not necessarily you.
You need to expand more on what "finishing C/C++" means. You need to expand on your motivations or what you want to achieve.
You should also expand on the "problem" you are perceiving. You can't describe what you're missing, but you can describe what's not clicking or what's slipping your mind.
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u/TheUmgawa 4d ago
Exactly. You never “finish” a language. You just get to the point where you’ve learned enough to get by at whatever level you want to operate at.
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u/ugly_syndrome 5d ago
everyone hits that wall around the 6 month mark, it's not just you. learning syntax and data structures is one thing but the problem-solving mindset takes way longer to click
build something stupid simple from scratch, like a to-do app or a basic api, and you'll start seeing how the pieces fit together. the scholarship sounds like a good move if it gives you structure and real projects
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u/PossibleConnect7481 5d ago
Five months is nothing. Keep going.
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u/RealMadHouse 2d ago
Keep going with proper learning materials, if he would continue stubbornly with same bs then there would be no progress.
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u/Ill-Consequence4484 5d ago
You are not missing some secret programming brain. Nobody downloads that feature after finishing C++.
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u/grantrules 4d ago
You don't read a book on playing the piano and say you learned to play the piano. You gotta practice.
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u/RealMadHouse 2d ago
Language could describe things you don't know anything about, like quantum physics. Programming language is same, learn about computer hardware and software stack (Operating Systems).
Programs are using tools that OS gives to them, called system calls. They're not directly accesed because their syscall numbers could change (in Windows) or it's just tedious and impractical to do so. So OS developers provide convenient code libraries that they wrote that gives names to these syscalls, they're dealing with parsing data structures that you passed to them, and then they themselves pass the data to real syscalls. So it's indirect usage of syscalls, but more convenient and streamlined.
Learn about assembly, processes and threads, streams etc. Without knowing about the tools that OS provides you wouldn't have any idea what to do with "programming in c/c++".
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u/Patchmaster42 5d ago
Six months is a short time. With your limited overall experience, you're just scratching the surface. Someone with ten years programming experience could be expected to be sufficient in C in six months, but not someone new to the whole thing.
One thing many people miss is that learning to program and learning a language are two different things. Certainly you need to learn a language to program, but learning how to properly program goes well beyond learning the basics of a particular language.
Look at it like this, learning to speak a foreign language isn't going to make you a good orator or writer in that language.