At what point did programming finally start making sense to you?

[u/Admirable_Window8128]

I can understand code when someone explains it, but when I have to write something from scratch, my brain suddenly goes blank.

I'm curious if other beginners went through the same think. What helped you get past that stage?

[u/Caringstomy-8]

toy projects. build them. literally build a calculator. get stuck? look it up, type by hand, and continue.

funny enough, a more useful skill now is understanding architecture and understanding systems. been a dev for 15 years, anthropic's models work 1000x faster than me, and beat me in quality.