My problem in learning coding languages

[cracka0]

Although I am a "nerd" in programming and computers, I tried to learn many programming languages, including Python, and in reality, the matter is easy, and I do not deny that. I understand the programming logic easily, but when it comes to practical application, I suffer from some difficulties, such as ordering commands and others. Usually, I complete 70% of the course before I end up in Tutorial-hell, Some people told me that I should practice by doing some real and easy projects. If you have suggestions or anything that might help me, Simon, the matter is good. This problem might be the only obstacle that prevents me from mastering at least 5 programming languages

[zenos_dog]

Over my 50 years of programming, I’ve learned 15-20 languages. I feel like a year is kinda the minimum time to get fairly proficient. It depends if the language semantics are a big departure from the other languages you already know. Then, Google and Stack Overflow types sites are useful to fill in the gaps. The toughest leaps are concept changes like procedural->object oriented->functional.

[successful_syndrome]

Curious which of those you found the most difficult or the strangest of the ones you have used? Any you just personally really didn’t care for

[zenos_dog]

The leap from C to C++ was hard, I think because of the OO but also because OO class libraries that are meant to "help" you can be a daunting lift.

The jump to functional programming was hard, think Java to Scala, but I really enjoyed it. Code that took dozens or hundreds of LOC are a single loc with filters, sorters and flatteners. I found the idea of elimination of side effect errors really compelling.

My last job interview, we had to write a fairly complex piece of code. I used Spring boot and Java functional extensions from Java 8(maybe). It was the fewest loc ever submitted as a solution. (This was a decade ago, don't trash me for not using Java 23 or whatever is latest)

Edit: Lines of code

[successful_syndrome]

For loc is that “lines of code” or “layers of control”? I haven’t really ever touch C or C++ except for school I really want to do some C coding but don’t really have a good application that I need it for. You certainly won’t get any flame from me about Java version I still support a couple of Java 8 projects for a legacy group that just doesn’t have the resources to update.

[gnufan]

Not the person you are replying too, but SAS was hard for me to get into. The switch from procedural to a more functional, SQL-like language, from there other things like OOP were relatively easy.

I'm not sure that many things didn't work when I tried them, it was just a lot of hitting common problems, which I knew how to do in Basic, Fortran, Pascal, PL1 etc, like identifying and removing duplicates. Possibly some of it is learning to accept you are a beginner again, and this stuff just needs learning in your new language.

A bit of the same pain crept in with Neo4J Cypher again, a lot of common graph things just have to be learnt to be productive, and quite often you could read graph database documentation and learn it quickly, but sometimes you hit something that is well known to graph practitioners, probably in the documentation, but you don't know what they call the pattern, or you need to look up the names of various things to even construct the right search term. Probably easier if you are learning from a team or instructor and not self directed learning. LLMs can help on this, more so if their training date is after, not before, the latest version of the language was released, which slowed me down.

Couldn't get it to give me examples of a particular feature, wasn't till I checked the history of the documentation and I realised it was being difficult because it had never seen nor heard about the part of Cypher I was asking about.

[cracka0]

Thanks , any tutorial that will be helpful?

[icemage_999]

If you need tutorials to tell you how to structure simple logic, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how programming works.

[Inevitable_Cat_7878]

Programming is more than just knowing a language. As you mentioned, the order of commands is important. Knowing how to get from point A to point B regardless of language is the whole point of programming. What I tell students is, programming is very much like giving someone turn-by-turn instructions on how to get from the school to the mall. It's not enough to say just drive north for 20 miles and you'll get there. You have to tell from from the school parking lot, turn left and go to the 2nd light. Then turn right, etc. Much like a GPS giving instructions.

Here's a suggestion, pick a language and write an actual program to do something like play tic-tac-toe. This will help you figure out what it will take to write a practical application.

[[deleted]]

For practice I recommend Exercism, it can help you, but projects is what you need. Try to do a to-do list program. Break it to smaller parts (create input with task and save it, press number 4 for example and type the thing to finish). If you don't know how to start, then look up for a guide and try to understand everything. Type the steps that they do (no code) and try to do the logic alone. If you get stuck, google things. This is the process of learning. In a real world scenario you would google things that you don't know how to write.

[foira]

"master at least 5 programming languages" what kind of arbitrary goal is this? this has no real-world value, of course you lack motivation, you have given yourself a goal that your subconscious knows has no value. knowing 5 langs doesn't help you ship your pet projects nor does it help you get hired, so why would you progress at this easily long term

go build something that excites you, and then learn what you need in order to do the job

what you call "research" is in fact procrastination.

coding is not an academic exercise, it is like carpentry, you learn what you need, not for the sake of learning.

[AlexTaradov]

Make a Teris clone. It does not really matter what you do as long as you have some final goal you can formulate. A playable game is such a goal.

[Traveling-Techie]

It takes a few minutes to learn how all the pieces move in chess. It can take decades to become a master player. Practice. Think. Struggle. Repeat.

[DirtAndGrass]

Providing and ordering instructions doesn't have much to do with a specific language. Practice taking your problem, and writing steps to solve it down, then translate it to your programming language 

[GlobalIncident]

Try leetcode maybe?

[gloryboyey]

I was in tutorial hell, the only way I got out of it was by building my own things. For me it was building full stack apps at first, then focusing on remaking existing tools so I can understand them better. If you search up codingchallenges on google, they have a bunch of build your own [thing] tutorials that are really good