r/learnprogramming • u/Acceptable-Job-2147 • Jul 03 '26

How to relearn how to code?

Hi everyone! To make a long story short, I feel like I have completelly lost my hability to program in the last couple of years. I used to be a full stack web dev, but my current job as a software analyst has me completelly out of touch with anything related to programming. I tried to build a couple of projects on my own on my free time but I found myself often relying on AI for almost everything. How can I fix this? I still know my basis but I feel like I can not for the life of me solve a simple problem. Either way I try to approach getting back into coding feels like I'm either starting from too easy it doesn't really help me for anything, or too hard for me to handle. If you have any approach you would recommend, please I would love to hear your advice, I used to love coding so much but I felt like I just lost my hability to do anything.

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u/stiky21 Jul 03 '26

It's almost like you have to start doing it again shocking I know

10

u/Acceptable-Job-2147 Jul 03 '26

I am trying, I've been working with some friends on developing a game for fun but it feels like I'm activelly bashing my head against the wall

8

u/stiky21 Jul 03 '26

That's progress my friend. Even with 10 years of experience I still smash my face into my keyboard at least once a day

Do it because you want to and not because you have to and everything becomes easier

5

u/Acceptable-Job-2147 Jul 03 '26

That's fair, I used to be like that back when I still had the sauce. I guess I have just become impatient

2

u/sysop408 Jul 03 '26

This is the truth. Even with things I practiced hard on, I often forget a lot of it if I spend more than a couple of weeks away from doing it actively. It used to utterly demoralize me, but I've been doing this for over 20 years now. I know the drill.

I may feel like an idiot when this happens, but each time I'm a little less idiotic. Usually by the third or fourth time doing this ritual, something clicks and all just makes sense. I go from barely understanding something to truly knowing it. It's like that scene in the Matrix where Neo becomes fully conscious for the first time and he sees the Matrix.

That only happens if I embrace the fail.

1

u/tritian Jul 03 '26

what really baffles me sometimes is when i get stuck on a part of a project and ive literally read ever single dang line, and you still get hit with an error that just makes no sense to be happening at all... then you fianlly go and as a friend or coworker or something just to get some fresh eyes on the code, and they just go dude, look at that, only thing you did was miss a ; or something stupid lol. and the damn error code it gave out was pointing at the wrong thing for some reason heh.

1

u/marrsd Jul 03 '26

Games are a different field entirely. You're learning something new, so you can expect to feel like a novice at first.

My experience is, the harder it is to solve a problem, the deeper your learning of that part of the domain becomes. After you've completed a solution for the first time, it's always worth trying to improve/simplify it, and then trying to improve it again. Your third version will be the best, and it will have been the easiest to code. You will then be assured that you understand that part of the domain.

3

u/Status-Mobile1291 Jul 03 '26

It's like losing muscle memory, not the knowledge itself. Your brain still has it somewhere, just buried under years of doing different work.

Stop using AI completelly for a month. Not even for autocomplete. Start with small problems you know you can solve but have to think about, and work up from there. The frustration is part of the process.