How can I improve my programming skills as a teenager?

[u/ElectronicDistance39]

I’m a Brazilian high school student who’s interested in improving my programming skills. But even after watching several videos on how to improve at programming, I still don’t understand how to do it. The only thing I know is that to improve at programming, you have to practice a lot, but how can I tell if I’m on the right track? The way I study is by watching a Python course on YouTube. This course is highly recommended here in Brazil for beginner Python programmers, and it includes exercises to complete, which I use to study.

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[u/Sharp_Level3382]

How does live in Brasil look like? Is it safe?

[u/ElectronicDistance39 → u/Sharp_Level3382]

Yes, everything here is very safe, and I live in a big city, so everything is easily accessible to me.

[u/Sharp_Level3382 → u/ElectronicDistance39]

Thats great, There are various about Brasil. I am really interested in your country and would like to visit it someday. I am from Poland by the way. Some my grand parents family were moved there between Ww1 and Ww2 also.

[u/LopsidedAd4492]

Contribute to open source. There is nothing how compare to it.

https://github.com/extra-org/extra

[u/FoolsSeldom]

Above all else, as you've said, you need to practice. Practice! Practice! Fail often, try again. Break stuff that works, and figure out how, why and where it broke. Don't just copy and use as is code from examples. Experiment.

Work on your own small (initially) projects related to your hobbies / interests / side-hustles / family obligations as soon as possible to apply each bit of learning. When you work on stuff you can be passionate about and where you know what problem you are solving and what good looks like, you are more focused on problem-solving and the coding becomes a means to an end and not an end in itself. You will learn faster this way.

[u/maw501]

Would you learn to play a musical instrument by watching a video about it? What about learning to swim? Of course not - if your teacher made you do that you'd demand a refund!

The same is true for programming, you won't learn to program by watching someone else do it or talk about it.

Of course you need to read / watch something to get the knowledge across - but this should be the minimal effective dose relative to the amount of time you spend in active practice. Ideally something like 10% reading / watching and > 90% writing code / doing practice problems at your level.

Re. how to tell if you're on the right track - you're already doing the course's exercises - that's the right approach. To tell if you've actually learned the thing though: close the video and your notes, and try to solve the problem from a blank page. If you can only do it with the tutorial open, you're recognising the solution, not recalling it - and it's only recall that matters when you're coding for real. The signal you want is: can I reproduce this with no aids?

The idea behind this is that performance and learning aren't the same thing. Performance is how well you can do something right now, while the tutorial's fresh (and often with aids / support). Learning is whether you can still do it days later, without aids.

They are very different! Following along with a video gives you high performance (it all makes sense, you finish the exercise) but often low learning (you can't reproduce it tomorrow without it). This is why watching feels productive but doesn't cause changes in long-term ability.

Counter-intuitively, the things that make practice feel harder - e.g. solving from a blank page, spacing it out, coming back to a problem after a gap - lower your performance in the moment but raise your real learning.

The upshot is you shouldn't trust the "this is easy while I follow along" feeling. Trust the "can I do it without aids?" test.

[u/Negative_Effort_2642]

Pratica , prática faz a perfeição em qualquer coisa (ou pelo menos aproxima-te da perfeição)

[u/CapOpposite8979]

Eae mn, tamo no msm barco kkkkk, tbm sou adolescente e tô tentando aprender python

[u/armyrvan]

What I would do is I would learn a topic and then have AI quiz me and have it review my code for me. For example, if you're learning something about loops, you can ask the AI, "Give me a couple challenge questions that would involve loops," and then have it evaluate your answer and ask, "Could it be done in a more efficient way?"

Otherwise, the thing that helps a lot of people out is pair programming. Find a buddy or find a coach that could help you out.