Stop Trying To Memorize Code - Do This Instead

If you are trying to memorize code then you are doing it wrong. Instead you need to focus on learning concepts. Programming is too vast to memorize every function and variable, but you can memorize all the important concepts of programming. Once you do that learning specific functions becomes trivial and learning new programming concepts also becomes much easier. In this video I lay out how you can use this way of learning to improve your programming skills.

📚 Materials/References:

🌎 Find Me Here:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction
00:18 - Focus On Concepts
03:28 - Code Is Ever Evolving
04:37 - Math vs Programming

#LearnToCode #WDS #Programming

[humbertocontreras]

One of the biggest advices I got in my early days as a developer was "Learn how to read and use any documentation". And after 25 years all I have to say is it was worth it.

[rahul-thakare]

Bottomline is,
Don't memorize the code, memorize where to find it.. 😂

[cas]

“Never memorize what you can look up in books” -Einstein

[DThompsonDev]

As someone who has been a professional for several years and now working at Google, I completely agree. You will learn best by doing and implementing. I've learned the same thing several times but each time you pick it up way faster. You will go through the motions and know how to do most of your daily duties and the rest you can look up.

[iliashterev]

I can add my own words here - When you understand something like those tech concepts two things happen.
1. You feel good for some time
2. It starts living inside your brain so you do not have to memorize it.
It is absolutely possible to forget it. But if you do and then you refresh your memory about the concept, the above process repeats itself.

[boutrostawaifi]

Human memory exists*
university: lets fill it with the ASCII table

[angelisdania]

This was my approach in university. I attended lectures empty-handed, and focused on firmly grasping the concepts while everyone else jotted notes down furiously. I did quite well as a result, and set myself up better for career challenges down the road.

[evanbero]

Well said my friend. When I first started coding I tried to memorize and felt overwhelmed until I “learned how to learn”.

[arnabparyali]

That's what our universities need to understand 😂,

[rudya.hernandez]

Focus on knowing what's possible and where to reference the how

[jonjoio]

As a beginner, I needed to hear this. I'm doing a course that has given some intermediate challenges of reversing strings etc but without using .reverse() as a means to practice. I tried so hard to remember what to do and felt like I was cheating looking at the documentation. Thanks for the helpful tip.

[sunilanthony]

Great advice. When I first started programming, I was trying to memorize things and got discouraged.

[juliennegarcia]

Me as a former nurse of 10 years I left the field due to the pandemic and now I’m in a coding bootcamp. I’m struggling because I’m trying to remember what a Var is or a string, or a Boolean 😂 my mind is gonna explode. I’m trying to learn this in a whole new way and this vid helps a ton. As a nurse you memorize a procedure, as a developer you develop a procedure. Thanks bro!

[GavHern]

5:16 THIS!!! I remember my young self trying to explain to my parents/ teacher why I don't need to remember my times tables. Sure it might make me faster at those specific problems since i have the answers remembered instead of having to figure it out but it doesn't make me better at multiplication or math at all.

[AdeKingProductions]

You just gained a subscriber. Starting my first programming job at the end of the summer. Your videos have helped me focus on the task ahead without trepidation.

[koendiepstraten]

Thank you so much for this video! I am new to learning how to code and got anxiety thinking about all the functions. This really helps!

[TheNeonRaven]

I wholeheartedly agree that learning concepts and how the language as a whole works is the priority, however, once you have the basics down packed, learning the common parts of the standard library and any frameworks or libraries that you commonly use helps immensely. You don’t need to memorize exactly how they work or every parameter, but at least be familiar with them and aware of their existence.

[montebont]

I learned to program (in assembly language) around 1977 - the days of batch programs running in 100K of memory and 99% of all input/output based on magnetic tapes and punched cards.
The "core" principles I learned at that time are still valid. Whatever the higher level additions like "events" may have added, any program boils down to:
1) sequence : instructions are executed in sequence,
2) selection: a test to break out of (1): if test goto <label> else exec next instruction
3) iteration: repeat a given sequence until (2) a selection is false.

I can also recommend studying the abstract description of programming languages like Pascal in BNF or SQL. It helps you understand
structure / semantics (meaning) as a solid base for understanding syntax - the difference between programming languages.

[binaryspace]

I think for programming, you are exactly right about memorizing the basic 5 elements to programming, (I would also include syntax), and then language specific important things. Then.. I usually just pull up old programs or google things that I don’t remember exactly like what you said.

[GodwinZMaga]

Thank you so much for this. I've been making this mistake for as long as I've been programming. You just changed that, good job.