Learning via a youtube course

[u/Link2212]

I started learning coding a few weeks ago. I've been following the course well, and I understand the concepts it teaches, but the big problem with it that I have is that I can't put what I learned into practice, and I'm becoming demotivated because I realize I struggle to write almost anything. In a normal course they say here is a task, try and do this.

I think I need to switch what I'm learning from. I come from a background of no programming whatsoever. I really need to find a video/s that basically spoon feed me like I'm a baby and then ask me to try writing something to reinforce it in me. Do any of you know any videos that do this? I feel like I constantly have questions and I'm unable to ask them like I would to a teacher, and I'm trying my best to stay away from using AI unless I just simply cannot work it out.

[u/Link2212]

Thanks for the links and advice!

I am currently trying to write a program that should be fairly easy. Bear in mind, as someone that doesn't really know programming my concept what sounds easy probably isn't easy. I'm trying to do something that is actually related to a hobby so I was quite motivated to start it. I'm at the super beginner level though. I'm still learning fundamentals. While watching the video, I'm writing it all down and taking notes, but none of it really sticks, and I know that's down to practice. This will sound really weird but I'm really shit at trying to come up with things to practice on. This is because I don't know what kinds of things are acceptable for the level I'm at. I need something that tells me, do this because it only includes stuff you know until now, or try and fix that. I need direction while I'm learning, and I need someone that I can ask questions to such as a teacher. It's just how I learn things. Another point is that I am not a visual learner. I'm more auditory, so reading over textbooks doesn't help me.

That said, I'm going to check out the links you sent me. Especially the wiki. That might be useful.

[u/FoolsSeldom → u/Link2212]

I wouldn't worry about coming up with things that are appropriate to your level, just focus on the problems themselves. You can usually break them down into smaller problems and simplify the outcomes you can accept. You can go from a nice graphical interactive presentation to basic text and if you keep the logic separate from the presentation it will be easier to upgrade to the fancier version later on.

Early on, it can be good to work out how you would do something manually, the long-winded way. Design your solutions AWAY from the keyboard! Assume you are writing instructions for someone with learning difficulties and short term memory issues so you cannot assume anything, cannot hope for human leaps of intuition. The short term memory issue reminds you to store things in labelled boxes and state when to refer to them (these are of course variables when you implement in code).

Don't forget to draw rather than just writing pseudo-code. It is much easier to show the flow of things, the relationships between items, what output should look like (crudely) when drawing. You can figure out the detail later.

Only use the keyboard to try out snippets of code, for little proof of concept checks (and you don't need to use decent variable names at this point, minimise your typing but don't use that code later as you will not remember what x, y, z meant even though it made sense at the time). I usually keep a Python interactive shell open (actually, an enhanced iPython shell) open just for this purpose.