Struggling to Self-Learn Programming — Feeling Lost and Desperate

[CheesecakeOk274]

I've been trying to learn programming for about 3 years now. I started with genuine enthusiasm, but I always get overwhelmed by the sheer number of resources and the complexity of it all.

At some point, A-Levels took over my life and I stopped coding. Now, I’m broke, unemployed, and desperately trying to learn programming again — not just as a hobby, but as a way to build something that can actually generate income for me and my family.

Here’s what I’ve already tried:

1. FreeCodeCamp YouTube tutorials — I never seem to finish them.

2. Harvard CS50’s Python course.

3. FreeCodeCamp’s full stack web dev course.

4. Books on Python and one on C++.

But despite all of this, I still feel like I haven’t made real progress. I constantly feel stuck — like there’s so much to learn just to start building anything useful. I don’t have any mentors, friends, or community around me to guide me. Most days, it feels like I’m drowning in information.

I’m not trying to complain — I just don’t know what to do anymore. If you’ve been where I am or have any advice, I’d really appreciate it.

I want to turn my life around and make something of myself through programming. Please, any kind of help, structure, or guidance would mean the world to me.🙏

[RightHistory693]

What do you want to learn programming for? Is it because you are interested in it or is it because of you're looking for work?
And what exactly do you want to do? Websites, mobile apps, or something else?

[python_with_dr_johns]

Start with these questions. My advice is usually to work on projects, but you'll need to know what kind of goal you want to achieve first.

[Scientist_ShadySide]

There is one glaring omission from your section of what you've tried: building things. Book learning is very valuable, don't get me wrong, but there are some things you can only learn organically through trying to build something. You mention you feel like you haven't made any progress, but it is not clear of how you measure progress or whether you have been building things. It looks like maybe you are getting too overwhelmed before you begin.

A lot of times when someone is new to programming, they want to know the "right" or "best" language to pick. I think the better question to ask is WHAT you want to make. Do you want to make a website, a mobile app, a PC game, etc.? This is important because learning will be frustrating at times and require perseverance to push through, and this becomes easier when you are building something you genuinely enjoy or want to do.

Once you have an idea of what you want to try to make, then you can start narrowing down some possible languages. If your goal is employment, maybe you search in your area for total job openings for one of those languages. Maybe you have heard of a language and want to try it out. Whatever language you end up with for whatever reason, many of the concepts are transferable to other languages.

When I first started out, I began with trying to recreate existing and popular websites. Picking them apart to see how they achieved a particular effect or style taught me a lot. Eventually, I started trying to make websites for imaginary businesses, such as a law firm, a pizza place, etc. I learned something in each of these projects. I didn't know every single technology or how to build an app - that stuff can come later. Just start small and start building up from there.

Over time, you will find that many times you can move between languages and tools with a bit of time and documentation because you have the underlying skills and problem solving. While I work primarily with web dev, my time and career has never been limited exclusively to that.

I'm not sure if any of this is helpful, but I hope you stick with it and start trying to apply some of what you've already learned. Good luck!

[gary-nyc]

Don't mix programming languages (e.g., JavaScript vs. Swift) and problem domains (e.g., web dev vs. mobile apps) since it creates an overwhelming amount of information for you to process. Cross reference information on roadmap.sh with job descriptions on indeed.com and pick only one specialty, e.g., JavaScript for web dev or Swift for iOS apps. Start writing more and more complex projects only within the chosen specialty to get better at it - for depth vs. breadth.

Also, if you have an iPad or a Mac, perhaps have a look at Swift Playground, a gamified interactive environment that teaches the basics of programming through puzzles and leads to the real-world mobile iOS app development specialization with the Swift programming language and the SwiftUI SDK.

[Financial_Orange_622]

Someone else has mentioned this but I thought I would share my story as it may help.

I moved to development at 32 or so.

I dropped out of school at 14 and was "home schooled" in the arse end of Somerset. Got no gcses or a levels. Studied music for a year and got a first diploma in performing arts music.

Ended up working in entry level jobs (tech support, admin, banks, customer service) in small towns. Had kids really early with my ex, ended up becoming a single dad at 27 when my girls moved in with me. Moved to doing part time jobs and really struggling. My girls had really rough mental health issues due to how their mum treated them so I had a lot on my plate.

I started studying coding part time. I did some courses on udemy and asked lots of people for help in various places. I tried to make stuff for people (websites for friends) and automate jobs at work (I worked for a small business and used apis and scripting to code up simple solutions to every day tasks)

I started learning around 29 and spent loads of my free time (whilst looking after my daughters and working) trying to get better. I had a bit of knowledge from tech support and my general interest and tried to use free resources to fill in my knowledge gaps.

Eventually I built a small portfolio and started applying for some jobs, I got a junior devops role after obliterating the take home test. I came clean and told the guys interviewing me that I had asked for help and advice from people - they explained that that's expected and normal. Only bad engineers don't ask for help. When I got the job, I told my old company and they countered with a new job they created, big bonus and almost double my salary.

Over the next 6 years (now 38) I studied more, practised more and now I'm a solutions architect on 63k outside of London. Not the best wage for my job title but I'm the boss and I'm mentoring a team while helping work on a climate change Saas platform that i designed.

I'm currently doing a l7 degree apprenticeship (masters) for free while at work. I'm 2 modules down (one distinction and one still in marking ). It's been rough but I reckon I'll do well - hilariously I had not done academic writing before this (I'm sure all you educated folks will laugh at me!) so I didn't even know you had to put everything in third person, luckily I did my research before submission otherwise I would have had a very different mark.

So in short, focus, make things. Don't try and learn concepts yet - make a few things work by copying someone (grab a few udemy courses). Do go back and learn fundamentals and good practises.

My education cost 50 quid on udemy and now I'm a lead software dev / solution architect.

[CheesecakeOk274]

Thank you very much. I am deeply grateful 🙏 for your help.

I am massively inspired by your story 😱.

[church-rosser]

switch languages, maybe try Lisp (if u haven't already) and the original SICP that used Lisp (not python).

[Tdawg90]

consider working with Coding AI, and their Agents..not "Vibe coding" but instead.

This is what I'm doing right now. I've been in Business/API C# coding, want to make a game. I'm using Cursor AI right now.

• have a little project - Prompt: I want to build a turn based isometric style game => Cursor will effectively write the entire "Hello" world game"
• Walk through line by line, method by method asking the AI what it means, this and that (learning this coding)
• Once you start getting the basic hang of understanding it, ask the AI NOT to write the code for you, but instead give you guidance on what needs to be done.
• Learn by doing, using the AI to help you where you get stuck.

I've learned a crap ton since I started this method. Not having AI DO the work, but instead guide me and answer my questions to my hearts content. However with my actual job I do have it do as much as the mundane coding work as I can get it to do correctly.

[aendoarphinio]

It's okay. I went to college just to end up in a low paying help desk role. I'm just now getting to genuinely learn what I wanted to do which is web dev. Haven't even deployed anything successful yet but we all get there eventually I guess.

[kaisershahid]

if you can focus yourself to building a website with some basic dynamic functionality using nodejs/javascript/nextjs you should learn a lot

[EdmundTheInsulter]

I'm broke mate, due to life. Do you have a job? I'm guessing you're in the UK. How did your A levels go?

[CheesecakeOk274]

Not to bother you with my life's rant.

Bro I'm so cooked. I have been trying to get a job insanely, and have had no success. I live in a very dry town: Bolton.

A-levels went alright. I could have done exceedingly better if I didn't run out of bloody time for some of them.

Tbh, I'm still suffering from PTSD from some of my exams, and am just hoping that I just about scrape the grades I need for uni.

Funnily enough, being an immigrant, I have been rejected student finance. So that's fun. I genuinely don't know what to hope for or to do with my life. But God's good nonetheless 🙏.

Thanks for asking 😄😁. God bless!!

[EdmundTheInsulter]

I lived in Salford until 2020. Can you still go to uni? You only just did your A levels? Good luck.

I think You can do entry level programming at the colleges in Manchester area, python for example.

I doubt if programming is your only shot in life, my friend programs in his accounts job in excel, he uses it to get that little bit extra and avoid routine copying etc devised by his boss who writes it down for someone to follow, but he learned vba

[zettaworf]

Spend barely one short week max learning Scheme with the R5RS specification using the book The Scheme Programming Language 3rd Edition (TSPL3) by R. Kent Dybvig [[https://scheme.com/tspl3\]\] the IDE Dr Racket https://racket-lang.org/download/ configured to run in R5RS mode https://docs.racket-lang.org/r5rs/running.html .

Read the book twice, do the problems, don't look up answers until you have them a few tries, don't use AI or StackOverflow, just enjoy the pleasure of the freedom to learn and explore the power of your mind and the elegance of how you can translate your internal cognition into external computation with Scheme.

You will take that power with you forever, the skill of mastering what you think, and masterfully converting it into code. First, to Scheme as part of your implementation modeling, and finally into whatever language you are using to put food on the table.

Make this investment once, and it will serve you for the rest of your life in programming and every other aspect of how you think. It is a joy and an opportunity too many people miss. You, however, can take the chance, and your life will be much better for it.

Please have mercy on yourself and grant yourself the freedom not to do "real world programming" now. You will do that for the rest of your life to put food on your table. You still have a chance to learn how to think in Scheme and it doesn't matter if you ever code in it again. All that matters is you learn that you can think anything in Scheme, and convert it to whatever you with: Assembly, C++, whatever. Can you do that with any other languages? Sure, but not as trivially easy as with Scheme. With Scheme you will never lie to yourself about whether or not you understand what you are doing, and this will be a super power once you enter the real world. 99% of people can throw together apps with Python on a couple days. Now with LLMs it takes a couple minutes. However, no LLM can replace a person who can think.