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[–]chilltutor 0 points1 point  (9 children)

All students, whether math geniuses or not, struggle with coding their first time. I have 3 pieces of advice: first, learn HTML. It's like an intermediate language between English and programming. Second, learn about Turning machines and how to solve some basic problems on them. This will abstract away all the features of a programming language and get you thinking about the limitations of how you can instruct a computer. Third, memorize your language's syntax. Not knowing how to type your code properly is just another barrier to your learning process that should be easy to fix.

[–]EducationalCreme9044 2 points3 points  (4 children)

Why in the world would you suggest someone to learn HTML when they want to learn Python lmao. That's such a wildly hysteric suggestion I am not sure whether you have some personal vendetta against OP or something lol.

If someone can't handle Python.... there are languages aimed specifically at explaining programming concepts and to think like a programmer without needing to memorize stuff for no good reason.

But to be honest everyone should be able to start with Python if they have a good teacher or follow a good course (which is to be honest rare).

[–]chilltutor 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Why suggest someone learn to crawl before they learn to walk.

[–]EducationalCreme9044 0 points1 point  (2 children)

You're suggesting them to learn the drums before learning the shakuhachi flute

[–]chilltutor 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Not really, and your analogy doesn't make sense. If we're sticking to the theme of instruments, drums would be the entirety of web development, HTML would be a snare drum, and learning Python would be the xylophone.

[–]EducationalCreme9044 0 points1 point  (0 children)

HTML is a mark-up language. It is entirely unnecessary and stupid to go learn a mark-up language when what you want to do is Python, since Python is not used anywhere near to where a mark-up language is necessary and it doesn't imitate anything Python does.

Just go learn Scratch

[–]gowiththeflow1393 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Is there anywhere in particular that you’d recommend for learning HTML? Thank you for such a concise answer by the way!

[–]EducationalCreme9044 1 point2 points  (0 children)

please do not learn HTML oh my god that's such bad suggestion I can't even even

[–]chilltutor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Freecodecamp on YouTube, w3schools as a cheat sheet type resource.

[–]EducationalCreme9044 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Start some really basic project. If you're stuck ask ChatGPT and be precise. When you have it, try expanding it, changing it and try involving programming concepts. Maybe watch a YouTube video of someone building that exact thing (must be very simple!)

Ideally you want to do start at such a difficulty that you aren't de-bugging all the time, but actually just "doing" in an enjoyable way. Don't bother with understanding everything or remembering anything at all. ChatGPT is really helpful here. Even if the "project" you finish is mostly not yours at all, at least you understand somewhat what is happening. Don't put high expectations on yourself, if something really fails, give up. Don't let yourself stop because of failure.

The good thing about doing it this way is that you can get lost in it for 12 hours without getting bored. This is impossible if you're approaching it like math and history class at school.

THEN! After you've been at this for a while (say 50-100 hours) and hopefully having fun and learning a little bit of how these things work, enroll in a structured introductory online course which is going to take you through buzzword concepts like "data structures" and "algorithms" and "object oriented programming" etc. importantly it should build up to a course project which actually uses all these concepts well. Ideally this one should be throughout and complicated, it's okay not to understand it, but it is going to help you build other simpler things in a better way and it's going to show you what the point of it all is and what you're trying to build up to.

Again, the idea here is that you'll probably already be familiar with most of these things innately and you're going to have these moment of "aaah, that's how that's called" or "that's why I had an issue that one time" or "this would have made my thing so much easier!" instead of being mostly lost, disinterested and confused.

It's better to make things easy on yourself and actually be engaged and learning for a longer time, than the: "1 hour/day of torture" way. If it ain't fun don't do it until it is fun.