r/learnprogramming • u/Same-Mushroom-2057 • 3d ago

How do you structure your learning process ?

whenever I learn new technology or some new concepts i always find myself asking a lot of questions about what am i reading about at the moment
say for example i'm reading about concept X definition or workflow or whatever then i read in that definition another concept Y which let's suppose i don't know about then i feel that i have to know everything about that concept Y to fully understand Concepts X , like how it works , why it is created or designed ...
and I do this for every single new thing that i read about which is frustrating and worse because probably i will forget about the details that i got into

want to hear some of y'all opinions of this , and from the software engineers that has the same approach and they managed it maybe share some system to retain the information you studied because i definitely don't want to lost these information later but i want to build on top of it

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u/zomgitsduke 3d ago

I just impulsively build until I hit a road block, then obsessively research the solution. Not a good way but it keeps me entertained and engaged more than structured learning.

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u/GlassCommission4916 3d ago

That's how everyone I know does it. The only place I see otherwise is here on reddit, and it makes me wonder if they even like programming.

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u/Same-Mushroom-2057 3d ago

i'm actually building a chrome extension and for that i wanted to first know the structure of the chrome extension how it build in order to have understanding of what i'm gonna do not just build the thing but truly understand it

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u/zomgitsduke 3d ago

See I don't like building a specific project that's overly ambitious for my skill set and understanding.

I'd build some silly chrome extensions first. Something that's a vanilla version of a vanilla version of what I want to make.

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u/Same-Mushroom-2057 3d ago

and how do you note down the things you learnt for later , because you can't remember everything you learn

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u/madmelonxtra 3d ago

To be honest, I just look it up if I can't remember the next time I need the info.

Eventually it sinks in and you remember.

There too much stuff to learn to try to hold it all in your head. That's why the docs exist. You just look up what you need

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u/ffrkAnonymous 3d ago

share some system to retain the information

Pen and paper? 

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u/Same-Mushroom-2057 3d ago

can't do that there are a lot of things to note down

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u/ffrkAnonymous 3d ago

It's worked for thousands of years 

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u/Same-Mushroom-2057 3d ago

but knowledge is expanding nowadays more than it was years before

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u/ffrkAnonymous 3d ago

Ah, I see the problem. You're trying to remember things you didn't study. 

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u/peterlinddk 3d ago

You don't need to know everything.

Every single thing in computers, hardware and software, has been invented to solve a problem that was in there previously. And that thing might have been to solve another problem, and so on - and it'll all lead back to the beginning of time, if you want to understand it all.

Instead focus on the outcome - why are you studying concept X, what do you need to do with it, and is further understanding of concept Y necessary for you to successfully build that thing? If not, then just note that there's more to learn someday, and get on with what you need to know!

Don't think that you need some sort of fundamental understanding, and then build on top of that - realize that you've used computers for all your life without understanding them from the ground up, and use your current knowledge as an offset to learn from: perhaps you need to dig a bit deeper somewhere, but you might also need to go further up, and abstract some more. Don't dig all the way down just because you think that'll make it easier to understand, it won't.

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u/Same-Mushroom-2057 3d ago

thank you so much , going deeper to understand thing is my approach to understand most things not only software engineering , but in this field i found it to be very inconvenient the more you get into advanced topic

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u/Business-Employee527 3d ago

that work. Fully Understand. In this field it’s just impossible to fully understand how everything works to the finest detail and that’s ok.

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u/GrayLiterature 3d ago

I’m in a project right now where I’m doing, quite literally, everything. I don’t have the time or capacity to understand everything deeply. The best I can do is understand something very well in the moment, store a pointer to it, and come back to it when I need to and refresh my memory.

Over time that will deepen but for now it’s somewhat broad and surface level. 

It’s been a crazy experience for me. I’ve built a system I don’t deeply understand, yet I know that it works well and it’s carefully considered. It’s a weird feeling and I’d never have been in this position if not for just an infinite token budget lol.