stop doing tutorials. Learn to code like this...

Thanks to Brilliant for sponsoring this video :-)

How I'd learn to code if starting again.

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[kleenbeats]

Great advice, but never forget the bigger picture. Most Musicians learn to play other peoples music so that one day they may play their own (however most end up playing covers on a Friday night or writing code first thing Monday morning).

[fredsmith]

I absolutely agree - having a target in mind is a great way to learn how to code... breaking down your project into component features & functions, and then working out how the logic of those components should work, then translating that into code.

I started to learn python by trying to code a perfect maze algorithm, without referring to anyone else's code.

I then looked at producing a game engine for 80's style text adventure games, which better helped me to understand text manipulation and classes & methods.

I've also looked at replicating some board games which helped me to learn path finding techniques.

And learning web scraping (using beautiful soup) and automated web navigation (selenium) has helped me to understand other aspects of coding too.


Although I don't code for a living, I now look at how I can automate/simplify work tasks using python - which has also helped me to learn about Pandas too, amongst other things.

[mikekramer]

Fully agree. To progress I need to do a bit of coding each day and I capture my learnings in library tutorials (jupyter lab notebooks). The breakthroughs come from stackoverflow, where about every hurdle I am wrestling with has both already been asked and answered by pro programmers. Currently working on modelling the UK transmission grid following the energy transition. This has introduced me to pandapower, geopandas, symbol, panel and many other great libraries, which allow me to simulate and understand the challenges of the UK electricity transmission grid in 2050.

[ProbablePaul]

This is spot on. I spent so many hours studying the fundamentals, OOP concepts, data structures and then algorithms, all in C++, only to realize none of it was really sinking in until I started writing bash scripts to automate some file management. When I was able to relate to the problem and the solution, all of a sudden I understood how an array or a linked list can be helpful, because I could see how it was functioning to make my life easier. I assume the same goes for personal projects.

However, the problem I've ran into when trying to integrate this approach into teaching myself programming is that I often don't know where to begin. Sometimes I start at point D, to later find out there was an easier starting point available: point A - which would then lead up to point D. Whereas with skateboarding or any other hobby, it was easy to determine a path for learning. When I wanted to learn how to kickflip, I knew that I needed to learn ollies, then kickflips, because one can't be done without the other. Programming is linear and technical in the same way, but identifying where to begin with your learning to reach a specific result is surprisingly challenging. I assume identifying these things comes with experience, but until you know how to find learning paths, you're left with seemingly unnecessary trial and error that can lead you to reinventing the wheel. Which can, admittedly, be a good learning experience, but frustrating none-the-less. Often times I chalk this up to being an unavoidable aspect of teaching yourself anything.

I just realized that you described this exact thing right after I paused the video to comment, lol. I guess my question then, is: How does one find the most efficient learning path to develop a repertoir of necessities? I believe people attend college hoping to be given this, but I can say from experience, it's not the case. Even if I can find useful projects to relate to, I have no idea how to ensure they will help my repertoir grow in a good way.

[simonjoelwarkentin]

I'm a music teacher and I'm beginning to learn coding. This is an eye-opening approach. Thank you!

[quimblyjones]

After maybe 4 years of off&on failing to learn to code I think I finally realised that I can take it at my own pace and to just spend time thinking about it.

Mid 20s and things have just clicked, super happy that I actually tried 😁

[encapsulatio]

What are your favorite books and courses at the intermediate and advanced stage mastery of Python?

[Villentrethenmerth]

To learn programming, you gotta be able to program. I am talking about setting up your enviroinment, working with cmd, knowing some basics. That's the initial threshold youu have to overcome.

[riskzerobeatz]

Great, new angle to look at effectively learning programming.

[ryansanderson]

I wish I had something I want to achieve. Been thinking about it for months and still can not come up with an idea. Maybe that is why my JS training has been so painful and slow. I can't get any traction. Stuck in tutorial hell and the rate of my progress is just excruciatingly slow. I work all day in IT, come home, make supper, work out, and can barely keep my eyes open to study for an hour at the end of the night. Just venting, sorry. I am trying to figure out of coding is worth all the time and mental anguish when I came across your video. I don't really have any sort of point to make here....

[theena]

Wasn't expecting you to play Toccata in D there, but it was welcome.

[XVRX-CAN]

Thanks for the amazing video, , could you pls tell us the best training for ML?

[PaulSmith-gbwq]

We have a concert pianist in the coding community!

[rachitmakhija]

What is your opinion on guided projects? And how to get best use out of them ?

[YeeLeeHaw]

What's the name of the piece being played at 2:30?

[SANDBREAK]

Omg that makes so much sense, I feel so stupid right now. Thank you :D

[fabri]

Thank you very much for this video, really

[ricoeva]

Love the analogy. What it miss if how to practice the right path. I’ve been to a lot udemy tutorials, but my problem is melomirzation. I am using notion to write down some essential code with my explanation) but I don’t find the way to practice with a kind of active recall. I am curious if you have an idea about:
1 the right path for web development by level as you said
2 the way to memorize it

[danyelbe]

Let me ask you, teacher, and sorry for my English. Ive been following you for some time and trying to exercice a lot on coding with Python. My problem is that: my memory is not great and my math skills are close to 0. But during this week, I was bored and I took a Python test at Linkedin. Well, I passed it, it was not difficult at all. But what does it mean? Should I invest more learning Python and Django or something like that to get a job? See, I m lost, I can do some code, I can make some little apps but I m light years from coding an AI, handling the maths to do data science and so. It's a bit chaotic situation. TIA.

[kainatsofi]

Can you please make a separate Video on a Project Like PDF to Audio Converter in Django python Step By Step, in Which We Can also Convert the Audio Language of the Converted File.