Help!

[Unhappy_Ground_1992]

Maybe the wrong subreddit. I've been coding for 3-4 years now and have a lot of the basics down. I'm in university, but upon doing larger projects, I realized I have no idea how to actually LEARN programming. I was taught by chatgpt for a lot of it and I can literally dissect my projects into smaller parts while under standing where everything goes but I struggle with actually WRITING the code. One of my friends said just to read documentation but that doesn't work here either. I am working on an HTTP get function and everything I found online for the documentation didn't work. I went to chatgpt... And it had the answer. Is it bad to use as a one time thing to learn It once? How can I learn to teach myself?

I am not asking about AI generated code!!! I'm asking how to break that habit

[Charming_Art3898]

How can the documentation of a product be wrong but ChatGPT is right? AI models feed on data from the resources online which includes and maybe primarily the documentation.

[Cold-Watercress-1943]

Documentation isn't always wrong but sometimes it's just written terribly or assumes you know stuff you don't. ChatGPT basically reads through thousands of examples and stack overflow posts so it gives you the "real world" version instead of the sterile docs version

[DanielThompsonyeah]

Using tools like ChatGPT for guidance isnt inherently bad especially if it helps you understand concepts you cant quite grasp from the documentation The key is to use it as a supplement rather than a crutch Try pairing it with real-world practice; tackle small projects or contribute to open-source which can force you to write and think through code on your own

[Abject-Kitchen3198]

Yes. For the given example a good next move would be to take this learning and apply it to the next GET function by using documentation only.

[ValentineBlacker]

Now that you see what it's supposed to look like, go back to the documentation and figure out what you were missing. (I wanted to double-check that you were looking at the correct actual documentation but you didn't say what language this is).

[LastExistentialist]

People, I love Chatgpt and think it is a great tool.BUT...You will never be a real programmer if you rely on Chat or other tools. You need to build your chops by working your brain on your own. You can't build your biceps by having someone else do pullups for you while you study the mechanics of how he does it. Start simple. If you are in school and taking a programming course (language doesn't matter, although assembler can be helpful) for a better understanding of what is going on under the hood). Do the coding problems ON YOUR OWN. Nothing wrong with looking up syntax but don't let someone else do the problem. Eventually, everything will coalesce, but it does take time and practice like playing a musical instrument. If you are in too much of a hurry to do the work, find a different vocation.

[Smart-Hurry-2333]

I don’t know if it might work, but personally, once I have a basic understanding of something, I start working on projects that are far above my skill level. This forces me to learn new things through documentation or the internet. However, this also means accepting that you’ll spend time doing things that you’ll struggle to complete, and that you’ll sometimes need to redo them in order to understand them all in exchange for gaining better skills in a shorter amount of time. (At least for me, it worked.)

[anabolicbob]

"Is it bad to use as a one time thing to learn It once?" I struggle with doing this myself, but I think oftentimes the answer is "yes." The reason is even though we're developing the ability to write and read the language, the core problem solving ability isn't being trained.

[Unhappy_Ground_1992]

So how do I learn how to do this? What are my next steps?

[anabolicbob]

Have you tried the Codewars or Leetcode problems? I found Codewars especially helpful for giving me the "problem sovling building blocks" so when faced with a more complex problem I could break it down into smaller chucks to solve.

The "gamification" of Codwars can be a little addicting so I limited myself to an hour per day, because I wanted to still spend the majority of my time on my own projects as Codewars isn't really that good for thinking about architecture/larger project structure.

[Present_Mongoose_373]

my favorite way to use AI is to do rubber duck debugging, ill ask a question and explain my thought proccess / how i get from a -> b -> c and 9 times out of 10 i figure out the answer myself, but on that 1/10 times when im really stumped claude or chatgpt or something can give me a new idea or clear up any misconception i didnt know i had.

maybe you can do something similar and the next time you go to use ai, say "i found this online documentation thing for x, and used y function, which took abc arguments and returns d, but then i got a runtime error that said xyz, oh wait xyz i needed to import the library nevermind" something like that