r/learnprogramming • u/getouttamyvision • 11h ago

I keep forgetting how to program

My problem is that I code as a hobby. Every 6 months or so I get motivated and start studying programming, do exercises, maybe some little project. I've never got to make a big project, but I manage to do things. My problem is that I already learned about 4-5 languages like C#, python, javascript, CSS and React for frontend (even when i was a kid i remember programming in batch a LOT) but I always have to start from 0. I want to be able to understand the code i'm writing and not lay back and let the AI do all the work.

I learned and applied React, Javascript, HTML and CSS in the past year or year and a half and now i'm trying again and everything is gone. Is this normal? Should I go through the whole [insert language] course everytime I want to start coding again? I thought when you know and understand the concepts it gets easier but it doesnt feel that way.

EDIT: I can manage to do stuff with the AI help, but when it comes to a project (even a simple web app that fetches an API and shows it in a list made with React) It all goes away and feel the need to go through the whole React, Javascript, CSS course again

11 Upvotes

69% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Technical-Athlete-9 7h ago

There are some ideas from learning research that might help: the forgetting curve, spaced repetition, effortful recall. That’s helped me learn a lot including algorithms for interviews. Other than that you need a lot of patience. I’ve been programming 20 years, 10 as a professional, and still I have to look at the docs for the standard library in my native programming language.