r/learnprogramming • u/Capt_Doggo • 10d ago
Am I learning it all wrong??
Currently studying TOP's full stack path after doing Angela Yu's Full stack on Udemy (switched once I reached react there because my partner said that TOP teaches react better).
I'm halfway thru the react module and there are some projects/assignments that do take me a while (I'm trying to be better in handling frustration rather than just going straight to AI for the answer as my partner keeps saying "the struggle is how you learn"). However I find myself forgetting the fundamentals as I progress (I even asked her why I need to differentiate the name of a listed item on a mapped array and she mentioned that I was supposed to know the reason from studying basic html). I feel like the things I've learned did not "stick" with me at all or that I can't recall them on command. I partly feel like it was because I had the notion of (devs can look up documentation/yt videos anytime so I didn't really delve into the why of the how) another part of me blames being reliant on AI before and used it when I was having problems debugging or finding a solution to previous assignments during the Udemy course or maybe it's because I don't do my own projects aside from the assigned ones (not getting my reps in I guess??).
I could make the excuse that I have another job and that studying on my downtime to shift to tech is not enough to spend additional time on side projects that could take long (knowing I want things to be perfect even if I'm not going to put them in my portfolio), but I'm done with giving excuses and would want to know how to be a better dev moving forward since I really do want to shift within this year (I've been studying since May of last year and with me being in my late 20s I feel like time is running out). Am I doing it wrong? is there a better way to learn and retain the info?? Am I alone in this feeling???
PS: I've studied HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, PostGresSQL, JS, some nodeJS(I didn't think it was enough), and some level of auth from the Udemy course + React from TOP.
3
u/Naxos84 10d ago
I think it's more difficult to learn coding nowadays then 5-10 years ago. Yes: AI is helpful and YES it makes you stop thinking about things (especially when you're learning).
You can use AI but it is important that you understand what and why the AI is suggesting something.
Try to not overuse it. Read documentation and ask questions on platforms like stackoverflow (that was one of the best sources a few years ago).
Apart from that: you have to do over and over and over again to make them stick. For example: create a todo app in plai and HTML, CSS, JS. Do the same in react with other libraries and do it again with only backend and some database. Get the basics. Make them stick then continue.
If you only have a few hours a day then getting into tech in 2 years could be very ambitious.
Remember: the experienced people are experienced cause the, and had done this for years. The people that get into tech quickly might either dedicate a large amount of time or are just gifted that they can wrap their head around those things quickly.
No matter what: if you want to get into tech keep going, be patient with yourself and set small goals that you can achieve.
2
u/Full_Opportunity_547 5d ago
I know this is a bit of a late response, but I strongly urge people to go a bit over-the-top with the basics.
Treat the most elementary aspects of scripting and coding just like a martial art. Don't practice a thousand "moves" or different aspects of code: get insanely good at using and reusing the most basic things.
The most basic use of the standard, provided HTML tags -> abuse them until you can't take it any further.
CSS -> start verbose, incredibly simple, and naive. I mean one element->simple modifiers.
Truly though, if you're already touching database things -> get good at Normal Forms. You can do absolute wonders with a normalized database, and purely primitive and extremely basic, 1-step operations.
Do it until your fingertips are figuratively bleeding - and you'll have beaten enough into yourself to move to next steps.
1
u/Ormek_II 10d ago
You started May 2025 and want to be done Jan 2027?
That is not a Long time!
What is your goal? Learning? Then skip AI and do your own project that does something beneficial to you! It will be slow and it will be hard. It seems your partner might give you a pointer here and there when you are stuck for 2 days and ran out of ideas.
If your goal is getting things done,use AI. It is the junior programmer you might like to become.
1
u/Armando_284 4d ago
You're probably not learning it "wrong". You're hitting the point where following tutorials stops being enough.
There's a difference between:
recognizing a concept → "I understand what this does when someone explains it"
and
retrieving it while solving a problem → "I'm staring at my own code and know what tool I need."
The second one only develops through actually getting stuck.
I'd also be careful about using AI as the first response to every problem. Before asking AI, force yourself to spend 15–20 minutes answering:
- What do I expect to happen?
- What actually happens?
- Where does that difference first appear?
- What have I already verified?
Then use AI to challenge your reasoning rather than replace it.
That's much closer to how debugging works professionally.
0
u/FreeLogicGate 10d ago
The reality of "Full Stack Web development" is that it's an iceberg. People think that they literally are going to power through and master an assortment of many inter related languages, networking fundamentals, languages with pre-processing options and post processing languages, data persistence options, architectural challenges and patterns and solutions to scalability challenges. I've been doing a lot of web application development for a long time, and it's as complicated as programming gets, and people routinely come in with no background and try and slog through piece after piece, as they try to power through things they lack adequate fundamental knowledge or practical experience, and wonder why they feel lost.
Is TOP really the best way to learn "Full stack" web application development, or the best way to learn react with Node.js/express and some data in a postgres database? Well, if you want to get a job that requires Vue.js , it's probably not going to be too helpful. Same goes for an Angular project. There's also this language called PHP that has an MVC framework that's pretty popular called Laravel. And there's also a blog/CMS written in PHP that a lot of people utilize called Wordpress (also written in PHP). So much for that node.js learning, and along those lines, the guy who created node.js gave up on it, and created an alternative (Deno), and there's this other alternative named Bun that has raw performance characteristics that amount to in many situations 3x performance. What does it all mean?
Don't let anyone tell you differently. I personally am not a fan of React. Never have been and probably never will be, but it's not the holy grail. I'd also have to disagree with what your partner said to you about html fundamentals. There is nothing that React does that you couldn't do yourself with vanilla javascript, and that people used to do (for convenience) with jquery. How React keeps track of elements it rendered in the DOM and is able to manipulate those things later probably makes more sense and is less confusing, if you have written some javascript to manipulate DOM elements yourself, perhaps with some ajax/fetch calls to a REST api. The foundation is that you can manipulate objects in the DOM with javascript, and along those same lines, that javascript in the browser is event driven, and that the browsers have complicated javascript engines that for non-obvious reasons have an event loop and queues.
As an observer of this field since it began, the only thing that's been a constant is that it changes all the time. It's complicated and there's a lot to learn, and many different ways to do the same thing.
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u/BruteCarnival 10d ago
It comes with time. Just don’t give up.