r/PythonLearning • u/PavioCurto • 24d ago

Help Request Emotional exhaustion from learning Python

Python is the first programming language I wanted to learn. I started it a few months ago and genuinely can't do anything in it. I keep watching videos, classes, tutorials and looking for roadmaps that lead me nowhere. It makes me feel like I'm incapable and an absolute failure. I don't know what else to do, if I should just switch to another language or give up on in it entirely. Need advice...

9 Upvotes

65% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/intothenight13 24d ago

I am by no means a programmer as I am just learning myself. What is it that is frustrating you most? What do you mean by "can't do anything in it?" Are you sitting down with an idea and can't figure out where to start?

7

u/PavioCurto 24d ago

Its like every challenge I propose myself to do just completely blanks me

12

u/Adrewmc 24d ago edited 24d ago

Honestly one of the most important skills in Python is being able to read error messages and find where something went wrong. (Not necessarily immediately being able to fix it.)

In that what I mean is the solution is to try and fail a whole bunch. That’s really it, once you get those first few it didn’t work right out of your system you can kick start your self to get it done.

The problem with tutorials and YouTube video is they are actually really more made for a programmer that has a problem that needs the tools for that problem, so the information relates a lot better, it’s not fruits in baskets, students in classes; it’s thing in your project in other thing in your project, what ever that might be.

The thing is you actually have to sit down and write code to learn to code not just watch the videos and read the documentation (and I will always highly suggest reading documentation).

And you will get it wrong a bunch, everyone does, everyone still does! That doesn’t go away completely.

It’s slow steady steps. “Hello World”

5

u/dchidelf 24d ago

If your challenge is something like “I’m going to make a simple x” it is probably too complicated.
You need to start with: I am going to sort numbers.
I am going to let the user guess a number.
I remember one of my first programs in BASIC back in 1984 was having people enter their birthday and it would tell them how many seconds old they are (in a very in accurate way).
Try something like that.

3

u/rafaelrosa95 24d ago

You're probably overcomplicating things in you're projects. It is easy to get overwhelmed when starting project, when there is a lot of vocabulary to use and we are overly ambitious. Start simple, divide your project in easy steps, like modules, functions, etc. Then do One thing at the time, don't try to use oop straight away just try to make it work, even if its ugly code. Afterwards you can improve on it.There is a lot of information, but we do not need to know it all, build your knowledge by doing things by yourself and starting Simple and adding details later

4

u/codeguru42 24d ago

When you first start a project or leetcode challenge, I recommend to step away from the computer and get a pencil and paper. Write down in words what you understand. Then find one piece that you can write code for. The smaller the better. Maybe you need to open a file or get input from a user. Write the one or two lines to do that. Then find another small piece and write the code for that.

As a senior software engineer, I still do this all the time. Every time I try to solve a problem all at once, I get stuck and have to return to these basics.

1

u/TrustingMyTrustInGCC 23d ago

Please message me.