I'm the worst programmer ever

Hi lainons, I'm sorry if this doesn't fit here but I need to vent somewhere about my problems. For the past 2 years or so I've been trying really hard to get into programming with no success. The only thing I learnt is how to write hello world in 5 languages or so and how to do basic arithmetic. >Programming is not for everybody. I know, but I'm 100% sure that the day that I will have created something that I always wanted nothing can stop me anymore. Problem is that it's really hard to reach that stage currently. I've read tons of books but finished only about 5% of them simply because I got demotivated or found another source that is better, >Turn off your internet if it's distracting you. Even this doesn't help. I usually walk out of my room after 4 lines or so and make a quick tour around my house to because I can't concentrate on the book. >Don't readPDFs on your PC. I bought a physical copy of "Programming In The Advanced UNIX environment" and "A Book On C" in the hopes of not getting distracted but nothing changed. I just keep shoving the books away whenever I don't feel like it anymore. >It's too late for you. Get a different hobby. Impossible. The only talent I have is knowing how to use computers, I use Gentoo as my daily driver but when it comes to creating stuff myself I just can't. I struggled 4 months to make a torrent client with no results because I never got started. If there is still a single thing that can be done to help me out of my situation please let me know. I will try to read a little more but in 2 more hours it's time to go to bed meaning that I will have done literally nothing for an entire day again. Thanks in regard.

>>25315 Sounds like you just have some focus/motivational problems. Also making a torrent client doesn't sound like a good project to do immediately after hello world. That's a project you'll want to spend a lot of time planning and researching.

Advice you probably haven't heard yet: 1. It helps a lot if you have a problem that can only be solved by creating a new program. Not a pointless Yet Another X project but a tiny thing that only you will ever see. 2. Books are dumb. Virtually all introductory programming books are clones of one another and teach programming by just teaching a language. Most don't even try to give you the full picture of what it's like to make a real program from scratch. Do small programming exercises like Codewars. Read other people's code. Prepare to stumble around in the dark for a while. 3. There's a lot to be said for fast development and instant gratification. If you think you have the attention span of a gnat, start with python or javascript and stick with it.

>>25315 Don't worry about it. Finding a good project is tough, and distractions are a given. Say you've got an idea. Get it written down ( by hand ), fast. Can you describe it? Model it? Ignore the details. Draw some soykafty pictures, flow charts, UML diagrams, whatever. Make mistakes. Think it through. If you're satisfied, great. If not, sit on it until you are. Don't be afraid to trash it, start over, or pick it up next week. Next, translate that description into code. Try writing declaratively: describe what it does in code (not how it does it). If it's some sort of REPL, try describing it like this: lisp (repl) (Scheme). Break it down: what's a REPL? Well, it's a ``read, evaluate, print loop''. Get that down, too: lisp (define (evaluate x) x) ; pseudo-definition, for completeness (define (repl) (display (evaluate (read))) (repl)) Repeat the process recursively for evaluate , and for everything else you come up with. Once you've hit rock bottom, fill in the missing imperative (the ``how'') parts. Those'll be gritty math, and other nuts and bolts. TL;DR: Programming's a craft: don't expect to get anything right immediately. The more you learn (read: the more net time you spend practicing and thinking about it), the better you'll become.

>>25315 Roadmap to success: Step 1: Learn the basics of python: how to define functions, loops, conditionals, arithmetic and logic operators (and, or, not, in). Give classes a read but don't stress over it right now. Step 2: Write the GUI for your client or some part of it. Use tkinter (an interface to tcl/tk), it works on all desktop platforms, is super lightweight and comes bundled with python. It has support for themes so don't worry if it looks ugly at first. By the end of this step you should have a decent intuition of classes. A lot of beginners struggle with the concept and GUIs are great way to understand it. Step 3: python-libtorrent are python bindings for libtorrent, the reference implementation of torrent. It has all the torrent related gears and bolts. Connect python-libtorrent to the interface you created. Notes: Those are not real steps but guidelines. You will need go back and forth between them and re-read tutorials and documentation. It's ok if you didn't completely "master" a step before moving to the next. Don't be afraid to search "how to do X in python" or post your code on stack overflow, forums and here. Don't expect to re-implement libtorrent as you first project. That's quite a lot of work. If you are interested in low level networking, there is a very good tutorial about socket programming available online for free. I don't remember the author's name but it's a pdf and easy to find. Albeit you won't need it to implement the torrent client.

>>25321 >>25315 The tutorial I was thinking of is the manual of scapy.

Don't just rely on books.

You are certainly better than many, because you are actually trying to recognize your problems and working towards fixing them. Many who do try to get into programming, don't ever get into that far.

>>25323 This. I've always found books to be good reference material for checking back on core concepts, but reading one cover to cover I can only imagine would be agonizing and a poor learning tool.

>>25333 When I learned C++ in 8th grade, I read a book alongside implementing a simple and dumb choose your own adventure. As I learned new concepts in the book, I applied them to the game where I found them possibly useful. It was a great way to learn imo.

I finished a chapter of the book on C today. I'm trying to build up the amount of pages I can digest gradually in the hopes of absorbing 200 pages per day in the future. The book is pretty fun since it introduced file manipulation and pointers in the first chapter which is extremely rare. >>25319 I was planning on using C together with libtorrent and ncurses. Only problem was that libtorrent is written in C++, a friend told me to create a wrapper but it immediately scared me away from even trying. >>25333 I did a lot of Hackerrank challenges and recently started using Codewars but I hear that they are useless because they don't have real-world application. >>25338 I was watching this playlist (https://invidious.tube/playlist?list=PLlaINRtydtNWuRfd4Ra3KeD6L9FP_tDE7) from the very first day it started but got demotivated after a while because I didn't like using VS and Windows on a low-end PC.

if you dont want to do it, dont do it, whats the problem? programming languages are just tools if you are not involved in writing tool that may help you or other then why bother? its not like job is particulary fulfilling, you will sit eight hours per day + few hours for commuting and outside you will be force to keep learning new technologies and educating to not be behind. Your future depends on tech lead opinion and they will look with disdain at you, if you decide to not do masters in CS for example or if you came from worse school. There is meritocracy here, that means if you dont like you are fuarrrked, really replacable, because there are lot of talented people that can replace you, they can be more outspoken and more intelligent, but more importantly they are not lazy. They are fast in finishing task because they had lot of practice, they dont hesitate, they can reason and think about what they create, and they come up with solutions very fast. They are perfect in being efficient, they know all IDE shortcuts and language quirks, their code is beatiful like work of sculptor, and they solve problems like they are detectives, client says something is wrong according to him, and they can guess where in code is the problem related to what client said. They just look at logs from time when client send a request and immiedietally they know the answer

>>25315 It sounds like your problem isn't learning programming but staying motivated, staying focused, setting SMART goals, and setting realistic expectations of what you can do at your current skill level. I would learning Python or Javascript, and setting microgoals that can be accomplished: like writing a script that takes files in your downloads folder and moves them into the correct destination if they are of a certain filetype, or other neat small projects that can be accomplished on a small scale. Here's a cool one: write a parser that takes a given sentence and replaced certain words with other words (like how lainchan replaces a.n.o.n with anon). Programming is super fun and super cool, you just need to take it one step at a time and focus on the fun, learn to set SMART goals, and keep motivated/focused. If you do that, then you'll be a wizard in no time!

>>25361 > like how lainchan replaces a.n.o.n with anon sorry. I mean to say like how lainchan replaces s/h/i/t with soykaf.

OP here. I spent some time reasing a self-improvement book and these are the best arguments I recall to motivate me. Gonna leave this behind for a future read. Steps I took to finally end my desperation forever; 1. Don't use a web-browser with tabs like Firefox. In 90% of the cases you end up making you less productive. 2. Turn off your internet. When you have questions write them down and don't search for answers until you have at least 5 of them. 3. Use the pomodoro technique if you can't stop interrupting your work, you usually enter hyperfocus after 15 minutes of dedication. 4. When you don't feel like it anymore go outside and exercise. You'll be working on the problem subconsciously in the back of your head. 5. Look ahead of the book to get yourself excited and go over each chapter before reading it so that you have an idea what you're about to do. Reading a book from start to finish is like walking in a desert without a map. 6. Do most of your work early in the morning before everyone else is up. 7. Take it easy at the beginning, you need to know how to walk before you start running. 8. Write down what you have done at the end of each day so that you can measure your improvement. 9. Thinking about what you have to do is usually more painful than just doing it. You can free yourself from the burden by just starting. 10. Don't get hopeless. Even if you read only one page per day it's still better than doing nothing at all. Remember that one day you will succeed and that everybody will respect you for your hard work. Good luck!

>>25375 11. Stick to ONE programming language for a long time. Learning "hello world" in 5 languages and nothing else is completely worthless.

>>25375 >1. Don't use a web-browser with tabs like Firefox. In 90% of the cases you end up making you less productive. >2. Turn off your internet. When you have questions write them down and don't search for answers until you have at least 5 of them. i think i'll start doing this myself. sounds like a nice opportunity to try out suckless surf too.

>>25375 Genuinely good ideas I'm gonna try sticking to some of them.

perhaps you'd find this helpful? https://jvns.ca/blog/2018/09/01/learning-skills-you-can-practice/

>>25400 This is pretty good, since he brought up, any good resources on high school math? I spent most of my high school slacking and not learning anything.

>>25375 i dont know if i can force myself to wake up early but ill try these tips

learning to program without writing software is like learning guitar without playing any songs. it's possible but it's really boring and kind of misses the point. if you can write hello world and do basic arithmetic, you have enough knowledge to begin writing software. the hard part about this early stage is that it's hard to motivate yourself to write software when all the software you write is inevitably going to be useless garbage. so you have two main options, accept that your beginner code is going to be essentially useless and just get by on the enjoyment of the act of writing it, or find projects that are easy enough that even bad code is useful enough. i think web scrapers are one of the best beginner projects. they're slightly more complicated than a bash script but not so complicated that you can't get away with putting everything in a big "main" function as beginners often do. They are also generally quite useful, and it's not hard to find niche websites, or even parts of popular websites, that don't have any existing scrapers out there (so you won't feel like you're just pointlessly reproducing someone else's superior software). chat bots are good too, for similar reasons. in fact, in a lot of ways they're easier (or at least less annoying). most popular chat protocols/services will have a demo to get you started, after which you can have fun making it do whatever you want.

Not sure if you are still checking this thread but if you (or anyone really) want you can contact me so we can talk about code and projects and stuff. I feel like it's always easier to motivate yourself if you have someone to talk to. hauntedcake@xmpp.jp

>>25315 (Hope you're still reading this thread) I guess this is obvious, but if you need anything, it's a project you're invested in. It doesn't matter if it's been done before or if you don't know the exact details of how to start -- the important and hardest part is starting, which is mostly a mind game. I was lucky in that when I started programming, I already had some ideas about projects in mind. Hardly anyone can focus enough if you start with reading textbooks and have no particular project goal in mind. As for what project you should start: why did you want to get into programming to begin with?

it sounds like you're making a big reach in terms of your current skill level vs the skill level required for the project you want to do. Which is something that all programmers struggle with. Also that you're visualizing the project as a whole. try these things to remedy the above: - make a draft of the smallest version of the code and set of features that would give you excitement / value as a user, and cut all corners to reach that. This can help you get momentum and clear uncertainties in other steps so you can refine things later. - create a __simple__ wireframe of the gui you want in a tool like wireframe or gimp - set up your IDE with as many autocorrect / format etc tools as possible because your speed of development will help you reach a further point before your demotivation kicks in. - if you don't know how to create a function then try writing a comment under the function detailing what you want it to do, and fleshing that out until you have a basic idea - do as much research into libraries and their objects in your language as possible - reach out to others for help as best as you can and above all focus on doing the work that you can do easily and worry about solutions to the hard parts later. It's better to have something than nothing, and it's the way a lot of unknown unknowns, both good and bad, are found out.

Hello, I'm someone in a similar position as OP. I am taking an intro to python class at my college. I'm abut to graduate with a useless degree; so I thought I'd give programming a whirl. However, it seems to me that a lot of you 1. Don't recommend using a book, because 'learning from a book is like learning to play the guitar without playing any songs'. I kind of get this, as the book right now is just teaching me HOW to do things 2. Are there resources for understanding how programming works, the nitty gritty technical details? I have no background in computer science. I can do basic things in Python but I struggle with defining what I'm doing, what is acting on what, and 'visualizing' the pieces of it all correctly without relying on intuition. 3. What would be a good resource to supplement this class I'm taking? Cheers

>>25413 >learning to program without writing software is like learning guitar without playing any songs I think that analogy is more apt than you intended. The majority of learning to play guitar is drilling scales and chords (similar to syntax and algorithms), and learning to play won't teach you how to compose (design programs), but it will help immensely. However, if you drill scales all day and learn no songs you'll quickly lose sight off the joy of playing. The most important trick is to do things you want to do in parallel with the tedious skill acquisition!

>>26088 how much do you want to learn? do you want a comprehensive list of links to free resources and a roadmap to becoming a django (python) full stack web developer? or are you just learning python as a little hobby? what exactly do you want to use python for?

i am probably worse programmer than you for sheer reason i am both terrible and employed, so my work has potential to do harm. For example databreach that happened in project i was involved in

>>26094 Well I'm not sure. I guess clarity of what I want to do would be helpful. I don't have any career prospects with my degree, so I suppose learning materials that I can use in a way to land me a job would be the best. I do know that it's going to take (possibly) years of study though.

When I struggle with learning from a book, I just pick a Youtube video that makes a short project and follow exactly what the guy types. Takes 1 or 2 hours and can be split up across multiple sessions. I just leave the video and project open and come back to it if I'm discouraged. It's not as good as really digging in to a comprehensive book, but things get easier and easier the more you are familiar with the language, I find.

>>25315 sounds like me before I started taking daily caffeine twice a day for my ADHD. > bought a physical copy of "Programming In The Advanced UNIX environment" and "A Book On C" great books, terrible for an eternal beginner. what do you want to do exactly once you get good at programming? > The only talent I have is knowing how to use computers that's not a talent. And most careers aren't achieved through talent. Sports and music are few exceptions. >I just keep shoving the books away whenever I don't feel like it anymore. go see a psychiatrist, seriously. You might have ADHD. This is a VERY common problem among us ADHD patients. if it turns out that it's not ADHD, go see a psychologist. Believe me, this isn't a tech or programming problem. You need to work on yourself now, the sooner the better.

>>26112 I have ADHD and caffeine hasn't improved my life very much. Have two cups daily.

>>26113 then you need adderall. I only drink coffee cause I can't afford adderall right now (yes I'm from Burgerland). Caffeine is the weakest stimulant out there, it's better than nothing but it's not even close to meds in effectiveness

Learning C was indeed a bad idea, I'm now playing with Go and it's a hundred times easier since you don't have to worry about things like buffer overflows. I already managed to build a few things without even looking that deep in the material. I also discovered Zeal a while ago, it's an offline browser made to read documentation for several programming languages, probably one of the best tools against procrastination and distraction. >>26113 Taking aderall is a horrible idea. Very addictive and now you're dependent on drugs to function normally. I have autism and am gonna try CBD oil soon to control my behavior, the reports on the internet sounded very promising.

>>26121 Onee-sama, did you consider that learning C is useful pretty much because you learn of all the spooky technical things that other languages hide under the hood, intimately?

>>26112 >>26114 I've never been convinced ADHD is a real thing lol, people have been telling me I've had it since I was a kid but it always seemed like it's all a scam for big pharma Then again I'm like 25 and literally the only adult bouncing off the walls in class so

>>26133 well congrats, thanks to the "muh big pharma" meme your life is effectively ruined. What's crazier is that ADHD is one of the most easily treatable disorders out there. But you're not alone and it happens to a lot of us. Go fix that, you're young and still have a lot of time to get back on track.

>>26130 Yes but it takes too much time and effort to create something basic. I'm considering picking it up again if I ever need to write something low-level like device drivers or games for embedded systems (pic related) but other than that I'm lazy. >>26134 ADHD does exist, the problem is that taking stimulants doesn't solve the problem, it supresses them.

>>26121 >Taking aderall is a horrible idea. Very addictive and now you're dependent on drugs to function normally every stimulant is addictive. But being addicted to a stimulant, either caffeine or adderall, is a million times better than living with untreated ADHD. besides, almost everyone is addicted to something so it's not really a big deal considering there are no real risks to long term use. Now abusing it is a different think entirely. taking too many doses can fry your brain, so obviously only take the recommended dosage. > problem is that taking stimulants doesn't solve the problem, it supresses them there's no real solution to problems like ADHD and autism, it's just the way your brain is and that can't be changed. So suppressing the problem is the next best thing

I am a horrible programmer too. I try languages, give up because I don't like something about it, move on to the next one. My go to project is pong. It's easy and has good milestones to keep you motivated. 1. Paddle 2. Move paddle. 3. Ball 4. Collision 5. Scoreboard 6. Menu That's the nice thing about all games I guess, you can see the results in an interactive way. I am currently doing in it C for the terminal (no ncurses) , and oh boy damn the terminal environment is way more complex than the C language.

>>26145 >(no ncurses) Why would you do that to yourself?

>>25375 >2. Turn off your internet. When you have questions write them down and don't search for answers until you have at least 5 of them. That won't work at all, if you don't know what you're doing and if whatever you're doing is poorly documented. An example is making games with unity: everything is so fuarrrking new and forign, and getting your idea to code without experience is impossible unless you can just google what you want. But if you do know what you're doing, than yes. I also adopt this in a different way: turn off internet for 1.5 hours, and turn it on for a half, and search up questions than.

JUST READ DOCUMENTATION. There's a lot of soykafty material out there so unless its a recommended book, stick to documentation. It contains most of the stuff that you need. Read carefully through each chapter, don't skip. When you reach the stage that you will be able to write some programs, learn to clear up your code, to make it easily extendable (learn SOLID and tdd). Python and js are very popular and you will have a lot of job offers in which these skills will be needed. FIND PROJECT THAT YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN Dont be afraid to mess up, benefit from experience of others. It will give you motivation and speed up your learning process. Moreover you will be working in the work like environment, and probably using same/ similar tools. I was a soykafty programmer for years, and this was a gamechanger for me. Cheers

>>26144 > being addicted to drugs is OK > everyone's addicted to something, you should be too! > there are no risks to addiction in the long term worst advice i've seen on lainchan > suppressing the problem is the next best thing Hiding a problem isn't the same thing as addressing it. You could do what I did once I got off Lisdexamfetamine and practice being consistent and organized in your own way. Definitely wouldn't recommend drugs, ADHD does make me a spastic fidgety scatterbrain but it also gives me a lot of creativity and passion. I'm not myself on amphetamines, I wager you aren't either. Also highly recommend the advice of >>25375, It's been very helpful for me over the past month. >>26134 ADHD is very real. It's frustrating that normals are unwilling or unable to understand this. "autism doesn't exist, it's just a big pharma meme to sell pills; you just need to be more social :)". "depression doesn't exist, it's just a bad mood; try cheering up :)" It's like trying to explain colour to the blind. Disorders aren't excuses, but they aren't made up either.

>>26152 >worst advice i've seen on lainchan this "worst advice" is the consensus in the medical community. Is lainchan an anti-scientific soykafhole now? I left 4chan to escape all that. > Hiding a problem isn't the same thing as addressing it it IS addressing it in the only way you can. Your brain doesn't produce dopamine like normal brains do, so you need medicine to pump some stimulus into your system. You can try dealing with the behaviors that ADHD brings out but the underlying problem of stimulus can only be addressed with meds > and practice being consistent and organized in your own way I actually do that because as I said, I can't afford meds so I don't take them right now. I still struggle with lack of stimulus because discipline isn't a magical solution to an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex and bad dopamine receptors. >it also gives me a lot of creativity and passion yeah it gives me that too, but I can never do anything productive with that unless I'm on meds (or at the very least on caffeine). I was a "musician" for years and didn't complete a song until 3 months after starting my meds. To me at least, the difference is really staggering. It's very easy to be creative some days and be productive others by simply not taking any pills during weekends. > I'm not myself on amphetamines, I wager you aren't either that's kind of the point of meds. On amphetamines I don't even feel the euphoria some describe, I just feel normal. I can hold a conversation without spacing out thinking about stupid unrelated stuff. The mind is less noisy. I can't wait to go back to using adderall, not because I'm addicted but because I miss being normal

>>26146 It's fun and I get to learn more

>>26152 ADHD haver here. I was on various forms of amphetamine (Adderall, Vyvanse, Dexedrine) but wound up getting addicted to them. I'm on Strattera now, which feels cleaner and isn't addictive. It's a big help.

>>26158 >anti-scientific go back to 4chan

>>26158 I'm the poster you're responding to. Perhaps I was being a bit hyperbolic, for the harder parts of this neurodevelopmental disorder it makes more sense to take drugs, I just prefer trying to deal with it with minimal or no drug use so that I won't be dependent on a neurochemical crutch to accomplish my ambitions. It is a handicap and popping pills might make some parts of the problem easier but I prefer eing distractible me and working out the bits that I can by my own power. If it's incredibly important, then I may pop pills. I do just fine with sugar, adrenaline, and hyperfocus. Structure is what I need and I do just well enough that I can get away with it. If it's debilitating for you, or if you're desperate to be normal, then pills make sense. I don't want or need pills however, so I'll be just fine.

>>26144 >But being addicted to a stimulant, either caffeine or adderall, is a million times better than living with untreated ADHD This depends on how severe the ADHD is, and I am disappointed you didn't acknowledge this. I know quite a few people with ADHD that, whilst they have it, can function normally without the use of stimulants. >besides, almost everyone is addicted to something so it's not really a big deal considering there are no real risks to long term use Rationalizing something by saying "everyone does it" is a logical fallacy. Moreover, long term use will lead to withdrawal symptoms, creating dependency to avoid these symptoms, take for example people who "need a cup of coffee" to function. The value of this risk depends on who you ask I assume.

>>26134 How you fix ADHD though? A low dose of Adderal? Adderal makes me feel like soykaf, gives me headaches, and I'm already underweight as it is.... What about the long-term effects of stimulants on the brain? What about my comorbid anxiety and depression? Maybe the solution is finding a career that lets you bounce off the walls and start and drop things; shift gears; etc easily. Teaching is probably a good job for people with ADHD

>>26197 > How you fix ADHD though there's no fix, only treatment combined with a lot of planning and lifestyle changes. Check out "Managing your Adult ADHD" > Adderal makes me feel like soykaf keep in mind there are quite a few types of stimulants - maybe adderall doesn't play well with you. Keep trying until you find one that has little to no side effects. if all of them make you feel soykafty then your next best option is caffeine + l-theanine. > What about the long-term effects of stimulants on the brain? I would say that unless your ADHD is mild, don't worry about it. the definitive pros outweigh the possible cons for most of us. > What about my comorbid anxiety well stimulants can increase your anxiety a lot. I was able to manage my anxiety without meds, but if it fuarrrks you up hard you have to discuss your options with both a psychiatrist and a psychologist. for some people anxiety can be cured by doing meditation and stuff like that, others are an absolute mess without anxiety drugs. >depression it's likely that your depression is caused either by the suffering brought out by ADHD or by the same fuarrrked up neurotransmitters that give you ADHD. So it's very possible that if you manage ADHD the depression will go as well. there's one non-stimulant drug called Strattera which is used to treat both ADHD and depression. Works like a charm for some people. Ask your psychiatrist about that, you might be able to kill 3 birds with one stone if it works > Maybe the solution is finding a career that lets you bounce off the walls well even with meds it's a good idea to find a career that constantly stimulates you. I found that any job that is "easy money" is a fuarrrking nightmare for me. Jobs where you have to learn something new every few months, such as contracting jobs and consultancy sound stimulating too. I'm personally aiming for software engineering, but the kind that makes you pull your hair out trying to optimize soykaf, not the kind where you're copypasting CRUD web apps all day

>>26210 Well I suppose I'll try to be more consistent taking my adderal then friend. It really does fuarrrk my appetite, gym routine, etc... makes me feel weird taking it daily too. Even worse than an SSRI to be honest.. because this one is psychoactive and makes me feel 'good' so I get guilty..

>>25413 >if you can write hello world and do basic arithmetic, you have enough knowledge to begin writing software. It happened to me that the hardest part was that what I wanted to write was way above my level(like someone who just went to his first day of piano classes decided to start his own symphony that day). It's not that I was trying too hard but that my knowledge was so shallow I had no idea what I was facing. It also is like kicking dead whales down the beach that the things I wanted to make were far from simple.

>5. Look ahead of the book to get yourself excited and go over each chapter before reading it so that you have an idea what you're about to do. Reading a book from start to finish is like walking in a desert without a map. This advice is good but the author almost always provides a map of their book for people to read already. This map is called the "Table of Contents". Reading ahead in a book is less important if you would take your time to study the table.

>>26088 >1. Don't recommend using a book, because 'learning from a book is like learning to play the guitar without playing any songs'. I kind of get this, as the book right now is just teaching me HOW to do things I disagree. Any good practical book made for beginners almost always gives you exercises. I have read books on how to play musical instruments for beginners and they always tell you to play songs with them. They give the reader songs that progressively increase in difficulty and focus on certain skills related to the instrument at hand. If you do not play the songs the book tells you to play then you are not using the book as an educational resource. Many books that aim to teach beginners how to program also have many exercises in them.

>>26088 >1. Don't recommend using a book, because 'learning from a book is like learning to play the guitar without playing any songs'. I kind of get this, as the book right now is just teaching me HOW to do things I really, really think you should read Stroustrup's Programming: Principles and Practices book, even if you dislike C++. The earlier part are too weak, but the later parts is both the best book aimed to beginners and the one that don't try to hide stuff from the readers. It's probably one of my favorite computer computer programming book and I don't even like C++ that much(I much prefer C, although I'm an Assembler lover).

>>26088 >1. Don't recommend using a book, because 'learning from a book is like learning to play the guitar without playing any songs'. I kind of get this, as the book right now is just teaching me HOW to do things You must be reading a pretty terrible programming book if it doesn't provide any exercises. Every programming book I've read thus far (only 2; still learning!) has had many exercises and assignments to do. >2. Are there resources for understanding how programming works, the nitty gritty technical details? I have no background in computer science. I can do basic things in Python but I struggle with defining what I'm doing, what is acting on what, and 'visualizing' the pieces of it all correctly without relying on intuition. I would recommend reading "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: Second Edition" as it goes over this very subject. In the book, you learn to implement your own Scheme interpreter (and thus understanding the basic workings of all interpreted languages) and you also learn the basics of compilation. It's referred by many to be a difficult book, and I definitely recommend having some programming knowledge prior to reading it, but I wouldn't say it's too difficult. A book about computer architecture might also suit your purposes. Perhaps try reading "Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective", though I don't guarantee quality as I have yet to read it, but I plan to. >3. What would be a good resource to supplement this class I'm taking? Self-learning is a method of learning programming that many programmers used and are using (me included); I found a website which lists topics and books/lectures which should guide you along learning computer science. (https://teachyourselfcs.com)

>>26151 >FIND PROJECT THAT YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN I would, but I have no clue where to find these projects.

>>26260 Github has many projects you can contribute to.

>I have an excuse for everything not going my way, the thread. Also >Impossible. The only talent I have is knowing how to use computers, I use Gentoo as my daily driver but when it comes to creating stuff myself I just can't. I struggled 4 months to make a torrent client with no results because I never got started. Then that probably means you simply don't like it. It sems like a case of sunk cost fallacy, just because you installed gentoo. I myself used to feel this way, and keep coming back to this board and to programming in general, but I already know that, at least for me, programming is a tool to get a job done, usually automating things that can be automated. I've dabbed into several other topic, such as biology and economics, and it turns out that I really like them. It seems here like you just developed tunnel vision and remain unaware that the world is vast and full of exciting phenomena and much progress has been done in studying them. But you have to take a break, to put things in perspective, because right now it seems like you have no idea what you want, you just want "programming". I have a few projects I always wanted to make. I never get started either, and when I start reading the material that I think I need I get distracted quickly. Instead I read on a different topic and I can't get enough of it, even if I'm not yet "making" anything.

>The only talent I have is knowing how to use computers Then become a sysop. Liking computers doesn't mean you have to be a programmer. Programming is like kicking dead whales down the beach, almost all the code you touch is absolutely disgusting legacy soykaf that barely functions. >>26152 I think it's not that it isn't real, it's that it isn't a real disease. Like, some people don't like to eat spinach and spinach is good for you so it would be better if everybody liked spinach. If the drug companies could invent a pill that makes you like spinach then lots of people would be diagnosed with DLSD (doesn't like spinach disorder) and be put on the pill. Maybe those people would've liked asparagus instead but since it's a "disease" now they need to be "treated."

>>26263 I don't want to use a Microsoft product

>>26260 Where to find programming projects? Github- most products have bugs and issues that you can try to figure out in exchange for code review Open Source Projects FB groups for programmers Local community of tech-savy people (hackerspace/makerspace/fablab etc) University science clubs -> they are usually looking for volunteers in tech field, and u dont have to be a student if its not too bureaucratic Lainchan - So many tech people there. Why not make lainon project? website or data science. Maybe there is someone that need some participants? Post your idea and gather people.

>>26088 >1. Don't recommend using a book, because 'learning from a book is like learning to play the guitar without playing any songs'. I kind of get this, as the book right now is just teaching me HOW to do things if you're reading a bad book then true, if you're reading a book like SICP then false

>>25315 desudesudesu! it'll be alright, just need to find some motivation. Programming is all about googling and being a retard. Ignore glitterboys who think they are better than you or whatever, they usually aren't and struggle with their own thing. Other programmers are good at demotivating you if you aren't capable of taking constructive criticism, What do you like doing? Do you like playing vidyas? do you like anime? do you like talking in irc/telegram/matrix/discord or something (make a bot or something!)? Do you like snake? Use these ideas to motivate yourself to do other projects. I like to play Minecraft, get bored after a little while, and feel like I want to make something, think about how stuff in Minecraft is implemented, think you want to implement it yourself in your own way. Don't start with a language like C or Lisp, as much as many lainions would disagree with me here. Start with Python, Lua, or Ruby. These are some languages that have a higher focus in problem solving, and they are used in the real world a lot. These languages will motivate you to move on on your own, you will get bored and want to learn something else. Usually though, you shoudn't hop between meme langs and just pick one and stick with it for your learning purposes. After a year, move on to C when you feel more comfortable and more motivated. Look at udemy, maybe books are too much for you, video tutorials will help you a lot perhaps! Oh yeah, torrent clients are a 50/50 task, for beginners they aren't a very good project, especially without a library, as libraries usually expect you to be somewhat knowledgable enough in the language. If you know the language enough, make a tool in a library and read docs and stuff. A basic torrent client shouldn't be impossible for a beginner, but maybe not the best project for a beginner. You're taking a big step here. >>25358 >a friend told me to create a wrapper If you're a beginner, you're friend is not a good motivation, telling beginners to "make wrappers and stuff" or apply advanced programming concepts is a very poor motivation.

>>26346 you mean: ~SICP

>>25315 maybe if you cant learn on your own try to get into a course for it or find some stuff online that gives you specific task that fit your level, and dont switch the languages stick to one language at first

>>26355 wrapper is not advanced concept adapter is pretty basic, you need it for easy testability of code that interacts with thirdparty libraries

>>25315 Have you tried literate programming? There you get to detach from the program from time to time to focus on design, documentating your ideas, and such before going back to code in small bite-sized chunks. You also get a chance to have a conversation with yourself about the significance of a piece of code along with how it relates to the bigger picture as you learn things. It's also useful for following along literate books like SICP where you can write your samples in the order the book gives to avoid having to dart around and update code here and there. I've been writing programs this way for half a year now where I've found it easier to commit to and resume projects when it's possible build the program in the order I naturally think of it rather than that the programming language forces upon me. So, it may seem odd but trying different environments may help you more than books and endless tutorials.

What you're describing isn't really a problem with programming as much as it's a problem with staying focused on things. I had this problem when I was a teenager but it went away after a couple of years when I matured. One way I learned to cope is by taking obsessive notes whenever I read something—sometimes to the point of even writing down an exact copy of the text I'm reading in Markdown word for word (only really works if you type fast), but it works for me. Another thing you can do is just go for full internet detox for a while and not even program but just work on theoretical programming/CS stuff. Even just architect a program on paper and actually implement it on the computer later. Other than that idk what to recommend. Like I said most of my problems went away when I turned about 20 in this regard.

I've gotten motivated in my code journey by starting SICP, turning off all social medias, installing a meme distro like void and setting it up just the way I like it - if the operating system is too accomodating switch to something like OpenBSD where you can barely use it, then I just spend all my time reading SICP and typing code up in DrRacket, sometimes when the exercises are too esoteric for my fool self I google them up because it's not worth wasting an entire day's time to figure out a simple problem. Why SICP? Because LISP is a meme lang and it's funny to picture how angry people will get at you when you tell them you only know lisp and start typing up some retarded lisp dialect like clojure in other people's git projects.

>>25315 you should study the psychology of effective study, time management, and take a foundational approach to learning concepts. read for comprehension. and beyond that read for fluidity of workflow + comprehension at once.

>>25315 ADHD user here. It has been 2 years. You were resilient and tried to help yourself. Look into meds.

>>27602 >when the exercises are too esoteric for my fool self I google them up because it's not worth wasting an entire day's time to figure out a simple problem. I don't know if your post was a joke or not, but all the exercises in SICP are very carefully designed and it's well worth spending a day or more wracking your brain over the answers. You'll get a lot more out of it that way than you ever would looking up the solutions.

>>26121 You learned C so Go became much easier to understand. It wasn't a waste of time.

>>25358 Coding competitions like hackerrank aren't useless. They're all about algorithm-building skills. Nobody, while first learning a new trade/skill, can do anything with real-world impacts. If you're good enough to make real-world impacts, that's great, but having fun with it should be the first priority. >focus I second >>25375 about pomodoro. Set a timer and dedicate the time to a task, then don't think or look at the timer or any clocks. Just keep working until you're interrupted by the alarm.