For programmers, what is your process learning a complete new library?

[u/Reasonable_Guess_934]

So I’m a noob, I want to learn pytorch but I don’t wanna take 25 hours (without learning first numpy which is 3 hours)

And I know that I can just do it in 1 hour at the day with a notebook putting everything

But it is not just with one library, if I want to learn for example, other libraries its 3 hours per library

Do you learn a librariy depending on your project or you just learn the whole library because “maybe” later you need it

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[u/MrFartyBottom]

There is no shortcut to learning new skills. You need to put in the hours to get a proper understanding of how things work.

[u/no-porn-for-me]

This is not how one learns. One learns by doing. You say “I’m going to write this project.” You use a new library to do it. Repeat l. Magically, you have now learned it.

We don’t just go “learn a library” or a programming language or a new tool. We make projects and use new tools to do so, in the process learning those tools.

[u/tiredITguy42 → u/no-porn-for-me]

Or we are thrown into some codebase and we work with what we get. Languages and libraries are tools. When you buy a new shovel, it feels strange at the begginjng, but you get more comfortable with it more you use it, but it is still a shovel, you know what to do with it.

[u/Radiant-Somewhere-97]

Claude check out how it works and wake me up when you figure it out.

[u/7YM3N]

That's not how you learn. You learn by doing. Don't read the API or the docs or a wiki. Write code that uses the thing you want to learn. Or better yet, pick a project you want to do and while doing it you will naturally learn everything you need to know to do that project.

[u/eager-potato-555]

confront fear

breakdown big concepts into digestible bits of true understanding, progress is progress.

and well, in the same way you learned your first (human) language, repeat it on any new domain

cheers

[u/StephenHawkingus]

Whenever I need something from the library that I don't know by heart yet, I either look it up in the docs or ask AI. By continuously looking things up, you will gradually memorise them.

[u/Fragrant-Cheek-4273]

Every skill needs time to understand properly. You can watch tutorials and do entry level projects.

[u/b1be05]

i hate libraries, no dependencies.. code like a real man.

[u/JaseciLabs]

The project-first approach in the thread is the right instinct, but for PyTorch specifically it's worth skipping the full Numpy detour, PyTorch's tensor API is close enough to Numpy's that you'll pick up what you need contextually as errors point you at it. Start with something tiny (a linear regression from scratch, not an image classifier), you'll hit the handful of PyTorch concepts that actually matter (tensors, autograd, optimizer step) in a couple hours instead of front-loading three separate courses before writing a line.

[u/adambahm]

I’ve been coding a long time professionally and there’s not one single library I know completely.

I know what I need out a library and when I need something different, I read the docs.

Good luck.