Am I learning programming the wrong way

Danielcross

Danielcross

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I’ve been trying to learn programming for a bit now mostly watching tutorials and following along the problem is I understand what’s going on while watching but when I try to do something without the video, I get stuck, feels like I’m learning but not really retaining anything.

Did anyone else deal with this early on? What changed things for you?
 
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There isn't necessarily a wrong way to learn that, just boils down on how you absorb or engage with what you've learned.
Try shift the learning a bit, use tutorials to understand concepts, then try building something on your own right after. Even if it’s small and messy, that's fine. Getting stuck is just a part of it, that's usually where the real rewarding bit is. Nothing beats applying what you learned in practice.
 
imccafey said:
There isn't necessarily a wrong way to learn that, just boils down on how you absorb or engage with what you've learned.
Try shift the learning a bit, use tutorials to understand concepts, then try building something on your own right after. Even if it’s small and messy, that's fine. Getting stuck is just a part of it, that's usually where the real rewarding bit is. Nothing beats applying what you learned in practice.
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That actually makes a lot of sense, I think I’ve been spending too much time just watching instead of actually trying things on my own
 
Danielcross said:
I’ve been trying to learn programming for a bit now mostly watching tutorials and following along the problem is I understand what’s going on while watching but when I try to do something without the video, I get stuck, feels like I’m learning but not really retaining anything.

Did anyone else deal with this early on? What changed things for you?
Click to expand...
Programming is earned. It takes time. If you do not spend the time just allowing yourself to absorb the info you'll not go far. As you get more time under your belt you will find that things start to come easier and the muscle memory starts to form. When I first started programming I found that short breaks were actually better, because it forced me to stop thinking about new concepts and made me think about what I had learned previously. I would step away for a day or two only to come back and realize I had new ideas of how I could use what I just learned or find that I remember that syntax a little easier this time and found writing the code that much easier than the last time. It's all about having enough to retain the info. Spend time using what you learned on a video in a new way, and do it for memory. The more you can do from memory the better.
 
jetski761 said:
Programming is earned. It takes time. If you do not spend the time just allowing yourself to absorb the info you'll not go far. As you get more time under your belt you will find that things start to come easier and the muscle memory starts to form. When I first started programming I found that short breaks were actually better, because it forced me to stop thinking about new concepts and made me think about what I had learned previously. I would step away for a day or two only to come back and realize I had new ideas of how I could use what I just learned or find that I remember that syntax a little easier this time and found writing the code that much easier than the last time. It's all about having enough to retain the info. Spend time using what you learned on a video in a new way, and do it for memory. The more you can do from memory the better.
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Interesting perspective, when you came back after those breaks did you try to rebuild things from memory or just continue where you left off
 
That's tutorial trap and it hits everyone — passive watching builds recognition, not recall. Switch the ratio: 20% tutorial, 80% trying to rebuild what you watched from scratch the next day. Better yet, pick a real problem you have right now (scraping a site, automating a daily task) and Google your way through it without any single tutorial — you'll be stuck more often but the stuck-and-figure-it-out moments are what actually sticks.
 
Danielcross said:
Interesting perspective, when you came back after those breaks did you try to rebuild things from memory or just continue where you left off
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What I found myself doing was trying to approach the idea better if I was working on the same project or use that new programming paradigm in a new way. For instance let's say I was learning about producer consumer patterns. I'd try to implement that into a new project. Over time it became easier to do I didn't have to watch the video as many times, or I was able implement it from scratch with no tutorial the next time. It also became easier to see when I would need to use that. Another example is I was learning about modularizing my code to make it easier to use in future projects. Over time it becomes much easier since I kinda standardized my stuff, so any code I wrote 1+ years ago can usually be implemented into some new project very easy. You also have to remember there is no way to cram all that info in within a short period of time. It's something you gain over a period of time. Sure you can memorize some things, but if you stop using it after some time it will be harder to remember especially if you haven't learned the core concepts
 
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hey mate!

Indeed tutorial prcess is real and literally everyone goes through it. The fix is simple, stop watching and start building something u actually want. On the streaming automation side i learned more in one week trying to build a basic Twitch chat bot than months of following along.

Break stuff, google the error, fix it. That loop is the real teacher.
 
Yes, that’s a really common hurdle early on. Watching tutorials gives you a sense of how things work, but retention only kicks in when you struggle through building something on your own. What helped me was switching from passive following to active practice, setting small projects, writing code without looking at the video, and debugging until it worked. That repetition builds real problem‑solving skills and confidence.
 
Master your management, and let AI do the learning for you, its faster when it comes to programming type outs. Nobody can type faster long term than ai can spit out solutions. Just pick a project you want to mark your life with, and get busy.
 
Yeah, that's normal. I've been there for a very long time before it made click. The trick is to build things by yourself. If you don't struggle, you don't learn. Even if you've seen it a million times, it will not stick like being stuck on something that sounds very easy but doesn't ever work until you figure it out 2 days later.


Projects are the way to go. I hated hearing this, but now that I have built a few projects myself, it's truly how you learn. If you don't want to build anything for yourself, just think of what might be useful to others. Or you just do simple projects from a project suggestion (there are million websites which offer them online) and build those. Do no use ai, struggle all by yourself. If you use AI, you will, again, not learn anything.
 
You're not learning the wrong way, you're just spending too much time consuming tutorials and not enough time building.

What worked for me was building real projects, get your hands dirty with code, go put your skills to the test. You might fail hundreds of times, you might do horrible code at first.. but you will actually learn much faster than if you would watch tutorials and read books about coding for that entire time.
One hour spent stuck on a real bug will teach you more than ten hours of tutorials!
 
Tutorial hell. Everyone hits it, including people who later make a career out of code. What actually breaks it: stop watching and start building something you'd want to use even if no one else ever sees it. A scraper for prices on something you actually buy, a Telegram bot that pings you when your favorite gigs are listed, a script that renames your phone photos by date. The constraint of "I personally want this to work" forces you to debug for real instead of pattern-matching against the tutorial. The first project will take 5x longer than you expect and you'll feel stupid the whole time — that's the actual learning, not the part where you understood the video.
 
honestly the only way i ever got out of this was building stuff i actually needed for my work... like trying to scrape a specific site or automating some boring account setup. if you just build generic "to-do list" apps from tutorials you will just fall asleep and forget it all. also about the AI debate in here... use it as a tutor not a copy-paste machine. ask it to explain why your code broke instead of just asking it to write the whole script. that loop of failing, asking why, and fixing it is where it finally clicked.
 
Danielcross said:
I’ve been trying to learn programming for a bit now mostly watching tutorials and following along the problem is I understand what’s going on while watching but when I try to do something without the video, I get stuck, feels like I’m learning but not really retaining anything.

Did anyone else deal with this early on? What changed things for you?
Click to expand...
You have to practice what you learn. Use YouTube to teach you, then write code the YouTuber says, then get back to the video, then write the code yourself etc.
 
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