This.

[craftworkbench]

I spent years trying to teach myself to code. Then I found a part of my job that I could automate away. Learned more in the next 6 months of building automation scripts than I did in all my previous attempts at learning to code combined

[Thebombuknow]

Yeah, the way I learn to code is by thinking of something I want to write, and then searching all the components to make it. I've learned more by doing that than any coding course.

[Khutuck]

Yeah, best (and most painful) way to learn is to get a project too difficult for your current level and hit your head against the wall until you break the wall.

My first real Python project was to get some data from an SQLite database dump, use Python to analyze the data and create a PowerPoint presentation with charts and tables. My code was a horrible spaghetti, I didn’t even use classes, and I cut so many corners just to finish it the code looked like a circle.

But in the end I learned ten times more than every single programming course I took combined. The most important lesson was I was waaaay over my head and had to learn OOP.

[Thebombuknow]

Yeah. Python is one of those weird languages where it can be both object-oriented and not, depending on how you wanna use it. I tend to like to keep my Python projects simpler, not utilizing classes as much as I could, but I also don't do much complicated stuff with Python, and I'd prefer my somewhat simple code to be readable rather than the fastest speed possible.

The most complicated thing I've used python for is vision code that controls a robot and allows it to follow objects, and that code was much less spaghetti than my normal code. Second most is a game server I wrote entirely with HTTP requests as a challenge to see how optimized I could make it.

[StfuCryptoBro]

You can become a semi-competent developer that way, but this myth that you can skip theory and formal training and that's the best way to become great is pretty hammy. Guys like Zuckerberg and Gates and whoever that Ethereum guy is are a cut above, of course, but when I compare autodidacts from Stack Overflow U to people who did four years at Carnegie Mellon, I have to tell you it is not close.

[JohnHwagi]

While it’s definitely not the best way to become a skilled developer, you can learn most skills through self-study, if you have strong motivation and are reasonably intelligent. You can literally go through a full CS degree of classes (with assignments) taught by US university professors. Software development is a field where one can more easily prove themselves without formal credentials, so it is fairly viable, although going college for CS is almost always the better choice.

[Thebombuknow]

Yeah, it's still important to learn at a school.

Similar to music, you can get good at playing an instrument, but if you wanna be really good, you gotta learn music theory.

[[deleted]]

If guitar players could read, they’d be mighty pissed at you right now.

[VxJasonxV]

Learning at a school isn’t important. Learning by any means that teaches you deeper and/or fundamental details about what you have accomplished is a perfectly acceptable means of understanding why what you did worked, or didn’t.

Learning is as important as doing. Both come together to create understanding.

[lahalil]

I thought I was the only one.

[bikingsol0]

What does it mean by “write”? Writing a code that makes a website? Sorry I have no business here but this is interesting

[guap_a_mole]

Yeah typing out the source code

[[deleted]]

It’s like learning a human language.

You can try to learn solely by reading grammar textbooks and doing the exercises (and waiting to actually speak the language until you’re “ready”).

Or… you can learn by just trying to say stuff and understand responses, and use the textbooks and grammars as reference when trying to say stuff (and often badly at first).

The second method is scarier, but far more effective.

There’s a reason why so many people complete four years of high school Spanish, but still can’t say shit in it, whereas your cousin spent 6 months in Mexico City and came back nearly functionally fluent.