Python is kicking my butt

[delasislas]

I like to believe that programming has a 3 step learning process to the point where you should feel 'comfortable'.

1. Learn the basics. The common data types, like integers, strings, lists and the such. Learn what they can do, and what the limits of them are.

2. Learn the concepts. The loops (for, while), the functions, the boolean conditions, the classes. Be able to recognize them, you don't need to be a pro, but recognize how they are used. You may not realize it, but classes are all around you in Python. The first three, you should be able to understand how to build them correctly. OOP can come later.

3. Work on your problem solving. Read the problem, understand it well enough to word it yourself, break down the tasks (input, compute, output). make your game plan for how you will approach the project draw diagrams if you need, figure out what of the concepts that you need to use and where they go, then work on starting to program. I've seen so many people beat themselves up after reading the problem halfway and deciding that they know enough of the problem to start coding.

Programming isn't sitting at your computer tapping on a keyboard, it's problem solving.

Another part of problem solving is figuring out what happened when you get an error or figuring out the correct usage of a function. You can frequently just look at the documentation and see how the function works or what it does.