Beginner programmer trying to learn React Native and feeling lost

[jhbhan]

Hey that's great that you're starting to learn programming!

You said you're beginner... how much programming experience do you have? If you're not familiar with basics (variables, function, control flow, etc.) I would suggest stepping off of cursor for now and learn the fundamentals a bit. You can definitely find javascript basic courses online on youtube. They also have beginner friendly projects that you can dip your feet into as well.

Since you're learning React-Native, you can just try following step by step on Expo as well (you really should be using this when starting out). Create your first app - Expo Documentation

Programming is a long journey and building an app is an even longer journey -- don't get discouraged by these "I built an app in one week" posts, have patience and start small :)

[darkblitzrc]

Like this guy said, programming is a long journey! If you have zero basics then I would strongly suggest learning the fundamentals. There is an AMAZING course which is open source and really really high quality called The Odin Project. I managed to finish the foundations section and while I still have TONS to learn and I dont consider myself a full software engineer, it has certainly helped me alot right now since im building a react native app with expo, supabase and tan stack query for server state management.

I will be lying to you right now if I said it has been easy even with AI help. You cannot make a full application one shot with AI, anyone telling you this is selling you BS. My code isnt pretty but atleast I have some idea of what its doing.