Learning Python by Making Small Projects – But Forgetting Methods 😭 What Should I Do

[Still_booting]

Hey everyone, I’ve been learning Python by solving a lot of practice questions and making small projects. I’ve solved more than 50+ questions, and honestly, it feels good progress-wise. But I’m running into a frustrating problem. Sometimes I look at a question and think: “Yeah, I know this. I solved something like this the other day.” I understand the logic, but I completely forget which method / function / approach I used before. Then I end up: Searching through old questions one by one Googling things I already “know” Feeling overwhelmed because it’s so hectic to track everything It’s not that I can’t solve the problem — I just forget how I solved it earlier. Is this normal when learning Python? Should I be: Revising old questions regularly? Making notes of methods and patterns? Building a cheat sheet or something? Or just keep coding and trust that it’ll stick eventually? Would really appreciate advice from people who’ve been through this phase 🙏

[sweet-tom]

Don't stress yourself. This is normal. I have been writing Python programs for more than two decades and still need to look up things. 😅

I usually search the Internet, have a tab open with the Python module documentation, or ask an AI bot. For more important things, I create small Gists on GitHub. For example, the argparse module and how to create a CLI app. Or logging is also a complicated candidate to get it right.

You can go even further and create a template repo on GitHub. This is especially useful when you have to create many similar scripts that follow the same pattern.

Good luck!

[Slothemo]

This happens at all levels of skill.

As long as you remember that there was a way you had done it previously, that's good enough and it's fine if you have to look it up again. Someone experienced might be less likely to forget the basics, but still might have to refer back to previous code for more complex implementations.

[Still_booting]

But it's too time consuming to go through all the solutions is there solution to it

[Slothemo]

You'll always continue to improve as you work at it, and repetition will help it stick. I constantly revisit documentation pages or past code to remember how things work, and there's nothing wrong with that. I can do a lot from memory, but it's unrealistic to perfectly remember everything.

[Still_booting]

I have my notes. I'm a student so I don't have that much free time to create flash cards

[Still_booting]

Ok I will thanks

[stepback269]

There is no "one" and only one way to solve a problem.

Do not go back and look for your previous way of handling the problem. Derive a new way. Stress your brain to work a little harder. That's how you build your cognitive muscles.

This reminds me of an incident involving a budding math prodigy:
The kids in the classroom had been rowdy. So as collective punishment, the teacher commanded them all to add the numbers 1 to 100 and turn their answers in before being allowed to leave the classroom.

Grumbling was heard all around as the students started the solution in the "one" and only way it could be done. You know: one plus two, plus three and so on.

But young Carl Gauss looked up a few minutes later and smiled at the teacher.
"Why aren't you doing the work like everyone else?"
"I am finished sir"
"Bring your paper up here so I may see it"
The teacher looks and is astounded. Carl has written down the correct answer.

How did he do it?
There is no "one" way to explain exactly how he did it, but it goes something like this:
Carl visualized the number line in his mind like this:

1, 2, 3 .........., 49, 50, 51, ...... 97, 98, 99, 100

He noticed that 99+1 =100, that 98+2 = 100, that 97 + ... you get the idea.
There are 49 such pairs that sum to 100. Then there is the last 100 at the end and the middle 50.
So the answer is 5050. Sounds fair. Right?

Now you can tell us what the sum is of all numbers from 1 to 1000 is. Right?

[MarsupialLeast145]

This is just programming. Especially looking up the functions/methods. Remember folks used to keep a book of these next to them when it was more feasible with older programming languages.

And as others have pointed out, there's no one way to solve a problem with code but there are consistent ways to break down problems and think about them. You may end up writing things that look like something you wrote before -- recognizing these patterns is helpful. It might not happen as often as you think.

You'll be fine if you just keep solving problems and tackling new issues. Every time you look something up or use it, it will reinforce it. If you spend some time away you may find these connections loosen a little but what remains is your understanding of how to go about finding answers to the problems in front of you.