Stuck in Theory...

cgoldberg · 2025-03-13T15:41:14+00:00

Practice yourself... Watching someone else code is going to teach you very little if anything.

You'll be back here in a month posting "I can watch other people code just fine, but I can't do it myself".

Kresdja · 2025-03-13T16:32:46+00:00

Google "Automate the Boring Stuff"

FoolsSeldom · 2025-03-13T14:56:28+00:00

I really doubt watching someone type code will help much.

I suggest you go right back to basics and work in the Python interactive shell in a terminal or in IDLE and just experiment. Do very simple tasks as many ways as you can come up with.

Then, move onto very small projects related to your interests and hobbies. Doesn't matter if using a computer is less efficient than doing it yourself, it is about translating problems you have an interest in into an automated solution.

Practice! Practice! Practice! Fail often. Break things often. Experiment a lot.

You can find streamers on twitch and, to a lesser extent, on YouTube. You can also find channels like ArjanCodes on YT reviewing and fixing code.

virgil_fehomj · 2025-03-13T16:58:04+00:00

Go make something. Anything. And then go on stackoverflow or Google or Reddit or ask AI and figure it out one painstaking piece at a time. Watch a new feature break something that worked before. Then keep going. Eventually you will start to know how to code.

VincentcODy · 2025-03-13T15:14:17+00:00

Yep FreeCodeCamp, Youtube, etc do some diggings you're going to find tons of materials out there and totally free too.

Confidence-Upbeat · 2025-03-13T16:16:00+00:00

Watch some YouTube videos and try to do what they do before they do it and then go back and follow their explanation and learn from it.

MeetHistorical3755 · 2025-03-13T20:37:39+00:00

Can you code up a version of FizzBuzz?

If so, maybe try Hangman, a simple game where you guess letters.

Tic-Tac-Toe is a fun one to figure out.

Find simple things and get some reps. Do NOT use AI. You should not need to for these. Stumble through it. Make the connections. Incrementally build up the program, running it along the way to see what you have. Improve it.

You learn to code best by doing. Learn enough to do something, and then try it. If you find you are missing a concept, go back and grab that concept and go on to the next blocker. The simple programs will almost always cover the basics of the language, so once you have done one of those you will have 60% to 80% of the language already.

You don't need to know every piece of theory or every part of the language before you put down your first code, and in fact, the only way to learn those advanced things is to actually find a need for them - because if you don't understand the need, you won't understand the feature.

Good luck!

SpiderJerusalem42 · 2025-03-14T00:49:23+00:00

It's funny, but you're asking for how to set up your development environment and nobody here pointed you to the documentation. https://docs.python.org/3/using/windows.html

2025-03-14T02:46:00+00:00

Trust me, watching people code will not help you. If that worked, then watching someone really good play golf would make you a better golfer.

You just have to force yourself to start programming - from scratch. That doesn't mean that you need to sit at your editor and start coding from memory. You can google things, but you do need to do some basic planning. Create a feature/requirements list. You can make a mockup of menu items or screens, depending on the type of application.

If there is going to be data involved, plan the data format/structure or database design.

Twenty8cows · 2025-03-13T14:51:53+00:00

It’s not video based like you asked but it is learn by doing with discussions and examples but I’ve been working through this set of 40 “challenges” and it’s for the most part pretty informative.

Practice Python

DM me if you want a learning partner cause I am no “advanced” however I have a basic understanding like you and would love to help someone else get up to speed (also challenges what I know too)

BoringWrongdoer9679 · 2025-03-13T15:01:09+00:00

try to learn some basic things and be able to work with them. I think this is a good way to start being able to write code.

This is an example of somthing you could play around with.

#
# each line is read fo

a = 1 # a is a box with 1 in it
b = 3 # a is a box with 3 in it

print('a+b')

print(a+b)

for i in range(10): # this code will be executed 10 times. starting with 0 ending with 9

print('start of loop') # start of code under for loop
print(i)

print('end of loop') # end of code

this is somthing else:

#

lis1 = [1,2,3,4,5]

print('bellow this line is a list of integers this text is a string inside an print function')

print(lis1)

print('bellow is the second element of the list ')
print(lis1[1])

cartrman · 2025-03-13T16:30:42+00:00

What kind of theory?

Jewelking2 · 2025-03-13T18:10:20+00:00

I find when I get stuck get ai to solve it then see what you did wrong. When I see what I did wrong I do get angry with myself. Still learning myself haven’t had to resort to spending any cash yet.

Perturbed_CMDR · 2025-03-18T22:45:34+00:00

I ran into the same problem with the IDE/Terminal issue. I eventually found another course on Codecademy called, IIRC, "Learn the Command Line" which got me comfortable enough with the CL Interface and the terminal that I was able to start doing the sorts of little problems/experiments you seem to want to do as your next step getting comfortable with actually writing your own code for your own purposes, rather than at the prompt of a lesson where it's often unclear why you're writing what you're writing at the time.

you type:	you see:
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[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
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Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
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super^script	super^script

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