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Logan Bresnahan
3,389 PointsUnable to think like a programmer.
Hello all,
I just wanted to start a general inquiry to get some feedback and help from the community. I'm basically a complete novice when it comes to coding. I've been studying Ruby for a few months now and have a fairly good understanding of it's literacy and features, but I find that when I'm actually sitting down to write a program from scratch I'm getting stuck quite early and often. Specifically, I've been tasked with writing simple games like mastermind and tic-tac-toe. I know there are many different variants of these games online but I'm hoping to write things like this without assistance in the near future. Does anyone have any ideas or resources that helped you to start building projects independently?
Thanks!
3 Answers
Alexis Lawson
15,355 PointsTime & practice are the best educators. Stick at it & keep practicing what you learn. I half build projects from a course & then experiment with changing the code. YouTube is also a great resource. You need to pin point the learning style that best suits you too & tailor your training to that ie visual, audio, reading, copying, saying out loud, repeating. Everyone learns differently. I need to read & do.... You'll get there. It's a steep learning curve & expecting to understand it in a few months is putting too much pressure on yourself.
Adam Costarino
1,575 Points[removed]
Logan Bresnahan
3,389 PointsThat sounds like a good road to go down thank you. I'm finding that just knowing the syntax is not cutting it for me. I see I'm really lacking these sorts of problem solving skills at the moment. Anyway, thanks for the tip and I will do some research.
Greg Kitchin
31,522 PointsI've not tried Ruby yet, so I don't know how easy it is to code mastermind or tic-tac-toe as a beginner, but you are on the right path with starting your own projects. It's a psychological thing; find a project or problem you want to solve, and then write code to complete it. But small, simple projects are the best way to begin; you will always be more invested in something you are interested in.
For example, I can't find the code I wrote myself just now, but I wrote code to add the numbers 1 through 10 together (long story). Later on, I can refine that code so instead of saying in Java
int value = 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10;
I'd use a loop instead.
Logan Bresnahan
3,389 PointsLogan Bresnahan
3,389 PointsGlad to know you think a few months is too quick! I really have nothing to judge myself on and was curious as to how long it might take an average joe like me. Thanks!