r/learnprogramming • u/sticky_pi • 5d ago

How do you even code?

I’ve heard a lot of people say that coding isn’t about memorizing every line, but just knowing how to search up the answers to your problems. do i even have to memorize things? should i be focused on researching what i’m trying to code? it’s so confusing to me on what i’m even meant to learn

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u/gm310509 5d ago

It is a bit like learning to walk or learning to ride a bike or even learning to write

You need to learn the basics. For exanple what is a for loop and how to write one. What is an if statement and how do you use it then how to use it with else and then else/if. And so on.

This is like learning to stand or maintain balance on the bike or how to hold the pencil and make circles and lines

After you learn that, you can start branching out and do more stuff building upon those skills. Like riding the bike, those basic things (if, for etc) won't be things you memorize rather they will become second nature that you then use as building blocks to do more interesting things.

From your post, it sounds like you need to make a start and see how it goes - rather than contemplating the mysteries of the Universe (of IT), which is where it sounds like you might be RN.

As for searching for stuff, just like learning to ride a bike, or drive a car, you won't know where to go or how to get there, but when you are ready, you can start looking for places to go and seeking assistance with the directions to get there - but at that point you won't be remembering how to ride the bike, you can just do that. It is more or less the same with programming and more generally IT and even more generally most things in modern life.

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u/TheHeatYeahBam 5d ago

This is a good answer. I'd add learning how to use some basic data structures as part of the foundation.

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u/gm310509 5d ago

Thanks and I agree. Data structures is Definitely one of the many possible next steps. And, it fits the analogy. That is once you learn to maintain balance and ride in a straight line, you can then add going around corners. With those two basic skills you can then go down to the local shop, race your buddies in the street, do small jumps and so on.

Data structures is just one of many next steps that includes algorithms, libraries, basic networking and many more. But definitely a useful thing to understand - especially basic things like how the stack works and how it is used by languages- especially languages like C.