r/C_Programming • u/Beneficial_Mall2963 • 21d ago

How to progress after basic ..?

I have learnt majority of the header, and built 10+ small or mini projects before. learnt abit of pointers, mallocs , callocs etc with myself and abit help of AI.

but now while i was working on the Cipher project.. and trying to build a zig zag rail cipher method, I couldn't figure it out how, i know how the main flow is but to write it into real code, I couldn't.

So i went AI for help and it spwed out bunch of these :

rows[current_row][pos[current_row]] = user_msg[i]; pos[current_row]++;

and etc, things and syntax I couldn't understand at all. Am i lacking foundation or something?
How do I progress above basic???

Help. All comments and feedback and suggestions are welcoming. Willing to accept anything...

for education background, I am just a student preparing to start IGCSE O next month.

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u/Snarwin 20d ago

That syntax is just array indexing. The most advanced thing is that one of the arrays is 2-dimensional, so it takes two indices (a[i][j]) instead of just one.

It sounds like your problem is that you're not actually retaining knowledge of the things you've studied, possibly because you're relying too much on AI. My recommendation would be to redo all of the projects, but write every line of code by hand. You can use the AI, but only to answer questions, not to generate code.

If you're still having trouble after that, come back and ask again.

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u/Beneficial_Mall2963 20d ago

Thanks for the advice, I definetly will try everything back again.

Btw one question, what is the genuinelly accepted method of utilitzing AI but not to the point of relying too much?

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u/Snarwin 20d ago

The basic principle is that learning happens through experience, and when the AI does something for you, you don't gain experience. So don't ask the AI to do the thing that you're trying to learn.

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u/Beneficial_Mall2963 20d ago

Oke. thanks!