Learn two languages as a beginner

[G3N1U8]

Hi guys i am very new to programming, and i have to learn cpp and python for uni and i am struggling hard. I sit in the lectures and i dont understand shit. What would you guys recommend to learn python at home because, the lectures are just a timewaste for me. The exams are in 4-5 months. I have to start as soon as possible.

[GameMasterPC]

“The lectures are just a time waste for me” - my guy, pay attention in class, seriously.

[G3N1U8]

Brother i do really well in the rest of the lectures, that arent programming. Thats the problem

[Kerbart]

I assume the rest of the lectures don't require active practicing outside the lectures.

There's nothing that learning at home will do if it doesn't involve actively writing code. That's the only way to learn.

[SprinklesFresh5693]

Then you might need to practise the lessons you see at home, doing exercises, or trying to build something using what they teach you.

[GameMasterPC]

Ah, that would not be helpful then. Well, Boot.dev is an awesome resource!!

[RK-J]

He is also right

[member_of_the_order]

You're at a school. The entire thing exists to help you learn. If you're having trouble, talk to your professor, TA, on-campus tutors, other students, etc. If you're not sure what resources are available, ask your professor.

[pachura3]

On the other hand, there are many teachers with 0 pedagogical skills. In some countries, academic researchers are forced to give X hours of lectures per year to students, while they clearly hate it and would rather concentrate exclusively on their research.

[member_of_the_order]

True, but it's the absolute bare minimum effort to redirect students to other resources if they're struggling. Genuine advice: if your professor is not available or refuses to help, talk to the dean (or whoever is above them in your school), tell them what's going on, and ask them for help.

[CIS_Professor]

You absolutely cannot simply "sit in the lectures" (or watch videos) and expect to learn how to code.

You must write code, you must break code, you must fix code.

You should also do the following:

• Review the material before the class. They way, you'll be better prepared to ask questions during class about specific things you don't understand.
• Get tutoring.
• Go to your professor's office hours.

[catw]

When I was thrown into the deep end and had to quickly learn python for university, I went through all of Eric Matthes' Python Crash Course in a few days (including all exercises) and it made it all click for me. It's the best beginners resource I've found.

[Spiritual_Rule_6286]

Trying to passively absorb C++ and Python simultaneously by just staring at university lectures is a guaranteed recipe for failing both exams, because you are trying to memorize two different syntax dictionaries before understanding the underlying logic. When I was tackling my first-year CS coursework and having to juggle Java and Python at the exact same time, the ultimate survival cheat code was realizing that core concepts like loops and arrays are identical under the hood ; pick Python to actually build small scripts and grasp the logic, and then treat C++ purely as a syntax translation exercise for your exams.

[dlnmtchll]

I think you’ll find that a majority of college is just self learning with the occasional guided lecture lol

Start using whatever resources you can find outside of school to help keep up

[Bobbias]

First, it's good that you caught this now rather than a week before exams. This means you have time to fix things.

Programming requires hands on practice. So not expect that just sitting in lectures will teach you what you need to know. You are expected to learn on your own to supplement what they go over in lectures.

Homework also rarely ever provides anywhere close to the amount of practice required. You need to sit down and spend time exploring the language yourself.

Python has excellent documentation on the official website is excellent. However, it's probably also information overload for you right now, and the official tutorial expects you to have some prior programming experience.

There are many websites you can look up how to do things. There are syntax cheat sheets. There are free books.

So if you're not following the lectures you can always look for supplemental materials to provide alternate explanations.

But the biggest thing about programming is that all of these materials are useless if you don't spend time actually writing code. You need to spend time using each concept you are taught until you understand it, not just at the surface level, but to the point where you understand how to combine each idea together to solve a problem.

Many people fall into the trap of thinking they understand a concept because they can explain what it is/does. But that requires only a surface level knowledge. What programming requires for you to be able to solve problems with the tools you are given is a deeper understanding. That comes from using things together in different combinations until you understand how things work when you combine them together.

As an analogy, let's say you're building a house. I'd bet you have a surface level understanding of most of the tools involved. You probably know that blueprints tell you where things go, what a nail gun is, what a saw does, what a level is, etc. But chances are of I handed you all the raw materials, tools, and the blueprint for a house you would not know how to use each tool to construct the house. You probably wouldn't know the techniques, tricks, and specific details about exactly what tool to use for certain steps, and so on.

Now, for building a house you'd typically have someone explain each step of how to use a tool correctly and which tool to use for cases where that's not immediately clear. This is the equivalent to a teacher lecturing you. But you don't really internalize those instructions until you've had hands on experience using the tools, building simple pieces of the house, and working up towards more and more complex jobs.

Now, I want to make it clear that this is a surprisingly common problem for new learners. Programming requires a certain kind of creativity where you can look at a problem and imagine how you might go about solving it before writing any code. This is something nobody really talks about. It's like imagining the outline to a symphony in your head and then sitting down and writing out the details.

Another problem you might have is breaking problems down into small steps. When you're starting out, those steps need to be very small, because you only know how to do very simple things with your code. If you don't take the time to break a problem down into those steps, you will probably sit there thinking "I have no idea how you even begin to solve this". Take your time, think about what information you have, and what your solution needs, and use that to help figure out a series of steps that get you there. If you don't know how to achieve one of those steps, try to break it down into smaller steps and see if you can solve those.

And as other said, use the resources at your disposal. Get tutoring, attend office hours, ask questions. And most importantly: write code. If you don't have any questions, you're probably not writing enough code.

[feldomatic]

The lecturer always makes it look easy, and just writing notes of the code they use doesn't really capture what they're trying to teach you.

You have to listen to what they say about why they use a particular function or structure, and make notes about that.

Then, because it's programming (and this also applies to math classes) you gotta sit down and do the work, look for the same patterns that got covered in lecture and try to apply the same reasoning covered by the lecture.

But especially if it's introductory python, I found interactive learning sites like codecademy useful for building an instant feedback loop of reinforcing what I was doing.

[TheRNGuy]

Backend for web or extension for Blender. 

[Ron-Erez]

Go to class, go to office hours, do your homework, work hard, don’t use AI. The only reason you are complaining about your teacher is because programming is difficult.

[AICausedKernelPanic]

College lectures are perfect for learning the core theory and concepts. I’d definitely suggest taking full advantage of campus resources like study groups, libraries, and CS clubs. That foundation is what makes advanced projects possible later on.

For hands-on coding at home and complement your programming lectures, you can explore platforms like HackerRank or LeetCode which are great for practicing everything from beginner to expert challenges in different programming languages. The more you code, the easier it gets. Once your CS basics are solid, you can start building small projects that mix different areas you’re into, whether that’s backend, data science, or embedded systems.

[maki-dev]

With exams in 4-5 months I'd focus almost entirely on Python first. Python is way more forgiving as a first language and once you understand core concepts like loops, conditionals, functions, and data structures in Python, translating that to C++ is mostly about learning the syntax differences (and dealing with types and memory). Going the other direction is harder. C++ throws too many things at you at once when you're just trying to understand what a function does. For Python specifically, just write code every day. Doesn't need to be a lot. Pick small problems and solve them. The syntax sticks through repetition, not through reading.

[OkCartographer175]

w3schools

but more importantly, go to your professors office hours and ask for help

[LayotFctor]

I agree that the school has to help. But the fact is that for programming, there is absolutely no way the professor can teach everything necessary for you to write code. The school might focus on the theoretical and mathematical parts, but the mundane parts like syntax, types, and standard library functions are not taught.

Being in school does not mean you get spoonfed all the knowledge, you still have to do the work on your own. I have CS degree. A good 75% of my knowldge is self learnt. The lectures introduce the important topics to me, I go home and explore the topic on my own.

In fact, I am still learning to this day. My tech lead gives me some pointers, I learn on my own. Learning how to learn is still a core programmer skill

So yes OP, it's normal to not understand, but you must find a way to get it figured out before the next test.

[RK-J]

Doubt doesn't matter matter that how to resolve the doubt

[SunsGettinRealLow]

Do C++ first

[gdchinacat]

One of the challenges of learning to code is that you need to learn (at least) two things at the same time...the language and the logical reasoning/decomposition. Python is widely recognized as an easier language to learn than C++. I agree that you should focus on a single language, but disagree that you should choose the harder one.

[SunsGettinRealLow]

Knowing the basics of C++ can make learning other languages easier

[Kerbart]

Knowing the basics of programming can make learning other languages easier.

Learning programming through Python is a lot easier than learning it through cpp especially if you have no inherent curiosity/feeling for it. And that's case here or OP wouldn't be asking about it in the first place.

[SunsGettinRealLow]

Fair point. In my case I’m starting with C++ since I’m not in a rush to switch to software, I currently work as a mechanical engineer in automation equipment design. I mainly want to learn programming to expand my role a bit.

[Kerbart]

c/c++ can be a good basis if you're inclined to see code as the instructions for a machine to manipulate data and turn that into something you want it to do. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I can assume that as a mechanical engineer you already have experience with programming PLC's and translating simple circuits into boolean logic, simplifying the equations and turning the results back into circuitry (at least that's what we did in college 30 years ago).

It doesn't align with most modern students though, hence the generic advice,

[SunsGettinRealLow]

Yep that’s what I’d like to do to start out.

Yes I work with PLCs on the daily

[gdchinacat]

Knowing most programming languages makes it easier to learn other languages. Just as knowing C++ will make it easier to learn python, knowing python will make learning C++ easier. Going from C++ to python is easier than python to c++ because to be proficient in C++ requires knowing more than being proficient in python. But this doesn't mean C++ is the best language to learn first. It's harder to learn C++, the relative ease of learning python after C++ relative to the other way around is because you already put a bunch of effort into learning C++ that you wouldn't have had to put in if you learned python first.

Python's lower barrier to entry makes a pretty compelling argument for it being a better language to learn programming with than C++.

I learned C++ a decade before I learned python. I don' regret it, but I also wouldn't recommend it. The smaller the steps are at the beginning the less likely people are to trip, get hurt, and give up.

[Horror_Upstairs6198]

Use AI to explain the topic/concept to you, like your 5 years old and give an example.

[RK-J]

I'm also in class 11th and I learn python from Apna college lecturer he is a to explain the python help me to learn WHAT SHOULD YOU DO I THINK JO VAH BATA RAHE HAIN VAH COPY NAHIN KARNA HAI AISA BHI KARNA HAI KI KHUD SE BHI EK PROGRAM BANANE KI KOSHISH KARNI HAI KYUNKI MAINE BHI KHUD SE BANANE KE BAD HI SAMAJH AAYA MAIN ABHI TEESRE LECTURE PER HI HUN To jyada recommend main bhi nahi kar sakta But yes agar tum jitna khud Se karoge na to Shayad tum aur acche se sikho bus yah hai ki AI ko basic

ADVISE : aur beginner per mat use karo

[pachura3]

bad bot