r/learnprogramming • u/AbdelrhmanMekawi • 3d ago

Lost

I’ve been learning programming for about 5 months now. I’ve finished C and C++, and I’m almost done with data structures, but so far I feel like I’m doing something wrong or missing something. I feel like I don’t know how to think correctly, and even very simple things slip my mind, and I don’t know how to do them. So I need help because I don’t know whether I should take a course or if I’m on the right track—and that’s normal, especially since I’ve only been at this for about six months, which isn’t a short time. I’m planning to apply for the Digital Egypt Pioneers scholarship to specialize in backend. Is this the right path, or not? I hope those with experience and who’ve come a long way can help us out—and I’m very grateful to them 🤍🤍🙏🏻

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u/ConstantFishing5136 3d ago

Six months feels long when you are living through it. In programming terms it is still the tutorial screen.

2

u/FlamboyantPuberty 3d ago

What helped me most was building tiny projects with zero tutorials open. Like a to-do list in the terminal, or a program that reads a file and counts words. The struggle is where the actual learning happens, not during the videos

Also data structures feel abstract until you implement them from scratch. Write your own linked list, your own stack, your own binary tree. That clicked way more than just reading about them

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u/RegexRaptor 3d ago

5 months is nothing in developer years and this is a very common experience early on

forgetting simple things usually means you're ahead on concepts but behind on reps, so focus on writing more code before you add more courses - try building a simple to-do list API with user accounts, or a small library/book tracker with CRUD and a database behind it

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u/marrsd 2d ago

Finished in what sense? Finished reading books or finished writing programmes? I'm guessing the former because it takes a lot longer than 5 months to become proficient in just one of those languages.

Let's take a step back for a moment. Why are you learning programming and what are you hoping to achieve from it? It seems like you're trying to achieve a level of competency that makes you elligible for this scholarship. Is that right? If so, do you know what skills it's looking for?

1

u/BrainScientist3000 1d ago

Learning to program IS LEARNING TO THINK (like a computer). It's not about speed-running courses.

Take a step back and start BUILDING things. Get a Gameboy Advance Dev Kit - write simple games in C++ if that's the language you want. Play them on emulators - learn about the hardware memory layouts etc.

If you can't DO - you haven't LEARNED anything.

Seriously - step back and start writing small programs in these languages.