How do you actually understand programming?
Posted by lx_356@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 61 comments
How do you actually understand programming? 🤯
I’ve been studying computer science as a subject, but when it comes to solving programming exercises… I feel completely stuck. Like I don’t even know how to start.
Is it just me or did anyone else go through this phase? How did you overcome it?
Any tips, methods, or ways of thinking that helped you finally “get it”?
Achereto@reddit
I found that programmer can think in specific, distinct, small steps. Those who have difficulties thinking that way also tend to find programming very challenging.
Just to give you an example. For some people, "brushing your teeth" is a single step. For a programmer it is:
I tried to teach programming to some people who weren't able to think this and they had no chance learning programming, because specific steps got diffues together in their brain and they couldn't keep them separate.
SaplingSequoia@reddit
You brush your teeth at the kitchen sink?
Achereto@reddit
That's a bug, not a feature.
Tuomas90@reddit
Multi-purpose sink DLC.
rupayanc@reddit
the "stuck before I even start" feeling is the exact point where most people quit, so the fact that you're pushing through it matters more than you probably realize. for me understanding clicked when I stopped trying to read code and started trying to break it. pick a tiny working program, change one thing, watch what breaks, ask yourself why. that cycle of prediction and surprise is what actually builds intuition, not absorbing syntax. tutorials give you the illusion of understanding because everything works. breaking stuff gives you the real thing.
charles_yost@reddit
The best advice I got about learning programming was from Dr. Charles Severance (Python for Everyone): The key is not to understand perfectly how the program works, but to learn how to build a network of interacting objects and orchestrate the movement of information between the objects to create a program.
Good luck on your programming journey!
Comprehensive_Mud803@reddit
Can you cook? Have you read and understood recipes?
Programming is just like that: recipes that a maliciously compliant but stupid cook will execute.
Or if not food related, have you ever assembled Lego models? The manual is basically a program for a human to assemble the model. (LEGO manuals even have subroutines sometimes).
Express-Channel-1686@reddit
the gap between following tutorials and actually understanding is usually one thing: you haven't broken something on purpose yet.
pick working code and delete 10 lines. figure out why it broke. try adding a feature it wasn't designed for. the moment you're fighting the code instead of copying it, the mental model starts forming.
understanding in programming is less about reading more and more about building wrong and fixing it.
Prince_DMS@reddit
It took me a minute to understand, hardest for me was nested loops. For me understanding came from actually writing code to do something I desired, and when I had issues debugging.
Basically, I learned by messing stuff up constantly, but continually working on silly little projects.
AlSweigart@reddit
Heh, just as a tangent, today I got an LLM to create a nested loop visualization tool that uses a clock metaphor ("the seconds hand makes a full loop to increment the minute hand once"). I'd be interested in if you'd think this would be helpful: https://inventwithpython.com/nestedloops/
Side question: did you understand nested loops once you ran code under a debugger?
Prince_DMS@reddit
Data structures and algorithms is what finally did it for me
TakeItCeezy@reddit
Def want to support what you're saying because it's true. The best way to learn is by just doing.
Build a silly little app that doesnt work, or crack something open and play around with its code.
GotchUrarse@reddit
This is the answer. You don't learn by following a tutorial and going 'oh, that worked!' You learn by trying things, making mistakes and fixing said mistakes.
TermiteTornApart@reddit
When I don't understand or I'm having a trouble I break it down in multiple smaller problems that seem more achievable, not only in programming, but anything in IT in general... That is an art on its own, and is something that is best if you first practice on problems that you already solved, for example "How do I print Hello World in C?" (extremely simple example, but let's go)
Step 1: import the stdio library
Step 2: create the basic main body functions
Step 3: call the function printf() with the argument "Hello World"
Ofc this is an extremely simple example and you should not comment out things like these, but for a cli todo list app, you could put in step 1 "print out the base ui with options for the user to add, remove and list the items."
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
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Ok_Mail_1199@reddit
Writing
Title: Quick advice needed on AI app build (happy to discuss further)
Hi all,
I’m building an AI-powered app (booking + payments + authentication + AI features), and I’m a bit stuck on what I should focus on next.
Would you recommend:
I’d really appreciate any advice — even quick thoughts help a lot.
If anyone has experience with similar systems, I’d be interested in discussing approaches further here as well.
Thanks!
Own_Egg7122@reddit
It's like learning how to make your own checklist - you think you need to list everything but turns out you need to prioritise what needs to be in the list and what can be skipped.Â
TseehnMarhn@reddit
You can read all the books you want about riding a bike. You can study and understand the physics behind it.
But still the first time you ride a bike you're going to fall.
You have to practice. No shortcuts.
DystarPlays@reddit
I find planning in pseudocode the easiest way to approach a new problem. Map it out in basic terms, then get more granular, then figure out how to do your plan with the tools you're using. Once you're done, refactor it with what you've learned on the first pass.
maxpowerAU@reddit
You can’t learn programming by reading about it, you have to do it.
Imagine reading all about running in a curve and jumping bendy poles and mats, and then expecting to be able to pole vault. That’s where you are.
Start small and build up slowly. When you’re reading or watching a tutorial you should spend more than half your time typing and running and debugging your own stuff. Don’t copy any code from an AI, type everything yourself.
Humble_Warthog9711@reddit
People don't want to actually do things, hence the reason why there so sooooo many posts about this on beginner subsÂ
Kitchen_Put_3456@reddit
This is the right answer, don't look anywhere else. I like to use cooking as an analogy.
No matter how many recipe books you read or how many hours of Gordon Ramsay you watch you won't be able to cook a five course menu if you have never cooked a simple dish before. To actually learn how to make great food you need practice, and even more practice after that. First you learn the basics, then you start to follow simple recipes and later on you learn how to create your own recipes.
It's the same with programming. First you need to learn the basics, like language syntax, variables, loops and so on. After that you can follow a tutorial for a project and create a real program. After that you can start to work on your own projects.
One note on tutorials though. The hard part of software engineering is not writing the code. That's actually quite easy. The hard part is problem solving and tutorials can't teach that. The problem is already solved and they only teach the code writing part. That's why many people get stuck only following tutorials. You need to take the next step and actually learn how to solve problems. And the only way to do that is to put yourself in situations where you have problems to solve. That's in your own projects.
blekibum@reddit
I understand what you are going through. Find programming exercises and try to solve them. Watch YouTube videos solving real problems too.
chocolateAbuser@reddit
there's a few things (yeah, who would have guessed); first you have to understand that everything will have to be done using numbers, doesn't matter if it's color, sound, concepts, text, relatioships, it's all numbers, and that will be the tool you have to keep as a base to deconstruct every problem you will need to solve
after numbers comes the logic, so understanding that sure you can have a list of operations in a sequential order to do stuff, and that is simple to read and understand, but sadly not everything can be limited in that way, you may have to move between these operations because of decisions, and then having group of operations with a name because operations starts to be a lot and you can't just have them all on the screen, and then it follows with groups of groups of operations, and then groups of groups of groups of operations
Rkbarve0110@reddit
Its kind of simple
Take a topic, for example strings Revise the notes, and then go through the solved problems After that do similar questions based on the solved questions to improve your confidence and then proceed with the harder ones
Also do like 2-3 questions daily from each topic or just through the notes to stay in touch so that when a new topic comes up, u dont feel stuck
MartinEdge42@reddit
build something you actually want to use. thats what made it click for me. tutorials feel abstract because the problems are made up. when you build something for yourself you suddenly care about making it work and the debugging teaches you more than any lecture
spinwizard69@reddit
This is actually a big problem for a lot of people and frankly it often has little to do with computer science. Effectively what you often are given is a "word problem". Yes just like those nasty things from math class. For example if you are given the problem to find all the prime numbers up to a million, you will struggle to find an elegant solution if you are not familiar with the math.
So the first thing to do is to take the problem and figure out exactly what it is asking you to do. The break down what needs to be done, in English, to accomplish the goal. A real simple one might be to take a recipe for Sheppards Pie and triple it for a large dinner. So what would you do. A quick break down would be this:
With that it should be easy to come up with some code. Note there are many ways to do this because I didn't go into great detail. For example the program could simply ask for the next item to adjust (step 2) and multiply that volume by 3 (step 3), then print and loop back for the next item. How refined you will be expected to make the code, depends upon where you are in your course. The prof, might want you to read the data from a file he has created, the additional complexity to teach file handling.
Generally the expectation grow as you get farther into the course. In the beginning you salve a problem simply. Note even with this simple program challenge there are numerous ways to implement, so don't get hung up on the one preferred way, you will get grief only if the program is excessive complex for the problem.
So this is the first challenge, get the problem broken down into what is required to get to the goal. The next is code creation and that is one of these things where you learn best by cranking out lots of code. I started out back in the day on a VIC 20, running BASIC, even here you learn a lot just by doing things over an over. Even something as simple as "Hello World", can provides hours of learning. First you write it out normally from left to right, then vertically, with a space between letters, gettign your name (or whatever) from the console and writing it all over.
In any event each step of the way you need to work over a subject until the key features are burnt in. Star working with arrays, keep the language reference near buy and explore all the ways the language has that supports working on arrays. One step at a time. These days, in an ideal world, you start out with C++ doing simple data structures yourself and then quickly graduating to exploring how they are done professionally with the STL.
So the idea here is that you write lots of code to get the hang of each CS concept. Somethings should be easy like what a loop is. Some are harder concepts that frankly one can benefit from previous education. I took some electronics in high school and learned what the logic operations where. This made understanding AND, OR and NOT easy and even leveled understanding memory layout a snap.
BizAlly@reddit
What helped me was realizing programming isn’t about knowing syntax it’s about breaking problems into tiny steps. when i got stuck, i stopped trying to code and just wrote plain english steps first.
Humble_Warthog9711@reddit
I feel like these sort of posts are usually just ways to avoid putting in the work. People are not short on external motivation.Â
Everyone realizes quickly what they need to do to solve problems - they need to progressively solve more complicated problems. Some people just don't want to put in the grind needed for itÂ
DehabAsmara@reddit
The gap you're feeling is because you're trying to translate a big English idea directly into code, which is like trying to write a novel before you know how to structure a paragraph. Programming isn't really about the code; it's about **problem decomposition**.
When you're stuck on an exercise, it's usually because the "problem" is too big for your brain to hold all at once. You have to break it down until the steps are so small they feel stupid.
Try this framework next time you see a prompt:
**Solve it manually first.** Don't touch the keyboard. If the exercise asks you to find the largest number in a list, how would you do it with a pen and paper? You'd look at the first number, remember it, compare it to the next, and keep the bigger one. That "remember it" part is your variable.
**Write it in "Human-Code" (Pseudocode).** Write the steps in plain English.
- Start with a list of numbers.
- Set "max" to the first number.
- Look at each remaining number one by one.
- If a number is bigger than "max", update "max".
- Show the final "max".
The "click" happens when you realize that code is just the final translation step. The real work happens in the pseudocode. If you can't explain the solution to a rubber duck in plain English, you'll never be able to explain it to a compiler.
Also, don't worry about being "efficient" right now. Writing "ugly" code that works is 100x better than staring at a blank screen trying to find the "best" way.
AmisThysia@reddit
I'm not advanced or anything, but this would be my advice after studying for about a year now. Warning, it's mega long (I may have to continue it in a comment), but hopefully it helps.
1. Learn how computers "think", by focusing on A) making things that B) don't rely on massive existing infrastructure(!!!)
I started with C through the (free!) Harvard CS50 course (which also comes with the above in-browser IDE I mentioned) and that was, for me at least, a way better starting place than starting with higher-level languages like Python or in web dev or something. Harder, slower, but better. Especially when it comes to something like web dev, I think starting there seems appealing because it lets you get something visually cool very quickly, but there's such an unbelievable amount of "invisible" heavy lifting being done by the browser, universal internet standards, and the high-level languages that you're not really learning why stuff works, just that it does.
To this day, the best thing I've done for "learning programming" was the lab for week 5 of that cs50 course, which was making a spell checker to print out all misspelled words in an arbitrary text file.
The TLDR of DSA is "a lot of very fucking smart people have been working on this stuff for a really long time; go learn from all the clever solutions they've thought up to common problems." It's very common to need to sort a list, or store hierarchical data, and so on, so there are a lot of insanely inventive, complex, and efficient solutions to those problems. Learning about them will reshape your thinking and your understanding of "how computers think" from step 1. You never get exposed to any of that if you just use high-level languages, libraries, or other infrastructure (e.g. browsers) which have implemented them for you, so that all you do is say "sort(array)" and it magically happens.
One more word on DSA: don't try to learn it all at once. It's mind-numbing to do so for most people. Just learn the bits that are relevant as they come up through projects you're working on. As an example: for a uni project, I wanted to find all combinations of a set of dice that added up to some target value (e.g. a list of appropriate swaps for a 1d20 would be 2d8+1d4, 5d4, 2d6+1d8, etc. etc.) I went and googled that, and found out it's very similar to a famous problem called the "coin change problem". I researched the solution to the coin change problem, understood it, then tweaked it to suit my similar-but-slightly-different needs. Now I've been exposed to the DSA idea of "dynamic programming" a little, and can revisit it in future, but I'm not gonna try to learn everything about it now.
So, now the training wheels have to come off. Ditch your in-browser IDE from step 0 and set up your own environment. This is partially setting up your IDE (even if it's just a text editor like vim), but it will also force you to do other things depending on the language and projects you're working with. If you're doing web stuff at this stage, you'll need to set up a local webserver through XAMPP or some such. If you're working in C, you're going to have to deal with compiling for your platform, linking, and makefiles. If you're working in Java, you're going to need to set your classpath. And so on and so forth.
Basically, you want to learn how to make an actual "executable" (either a literal executable program on your computer, or, in the case of e.g. web dev, something that actually works on a real web server, etc.) on your own.
Now you can talk to a computer. Now's the time to start exploring all the interconnected extra skills beyond pure "programming logic" that are required to make real-world applications. Ideally, you tackle these in a sensible order, i.e. as they become relevant to some project you want to do. Again, don't try to "study" them all in one go; learn what you need to as it comes up in some project you're trying to do. Just a few examples:
- How relational databases work, how to query them with SQL, and how to design and use one for a project. Understanding how they are used in real applications will start to introduce you to ideas like race conditions as well.
- How connectivity works, i.e. how computers talk to eachother on local networks and over the internet. This is an incredibly deep topic, obviously, but you'll start to learn about TCP/IP, GET/POST requests, sockets, etc. As a subtopic of connectivity, you'll inevitably start to explore common data formats like JSON, CSV, XML, etc., and how to convert to/from these formats.
- During the above two, you'll likely have your first encounter with the basics of security - prepared SQL statements, for example.
- How source/version control works, i.e. Git, Github, etc.
- What the fuck a "Linux distro" is, why Linux is so important, how it differs from the more-familiar Mac/Windows, etc.
- Terminal commands, working without a GUI, sshing into a server, and/or how to automate repetitive tasks via e.g. bash scripting. Often, this is how people start to explore their platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.) and how it works.
- Concurrency, multithreading, and reentrant code - how to do multiple things at once
- If you've not learned it yet (will depend on what language/projects you've been doing), the basics of object-oriented programming - classes and inheritance and polymorphism etc.
Steps 2-4 continue forever, basically. You will always be learning new DSA, new tools or IDEs for making your programs, and more related skills/knowledge.
Usually, by now, you've started to get an idea for what you actually "like" and what sort of projects, languages, jobs, etc. you'd like to keep working on in future, and which you'd like to leave behind you. Great, that gives you direction.
As you pursue that direction, eventually you'll reach a point where you're working on a more involved project, and a brand new need comes up, and researching that need will reveal an entire subfield to you that's just as deep and complex as everything you've learned so far combined.
I'm just creeping into this, so you'll notice my examples are a bit vague, but to list a few I've stumbled into of late:
- AI/machine learning/neural networks, and all the statistics behind it.
- Graphics programming, writing shaders for GPUs to use complex linear algebra to render things on screen
- Embedded systems or IoT - how differently things must work for the tiny, low-resource chips in your fridge, or smart-lights, or whatever, than your desktop PC!
These subfields are complex enough to be a job/career in and of themselves. You might decide you love one of them enough to dedicate yourself to pursuing it. Great if so - by now, you've gotten used to learning, teaching yourself, figuring things out. You'll be able to learn this new field using an equivalent approach to the above.
Reasonable_Ad1226@reddit
Learn C language.  Nothing makes sense, eg.. You can’t solve problems it, is because you don’t understand how any of it works. Surface level understanding gets you what you have.. the idea you comprehend what’s in front of you but an inability to utilize the so called understanding.Â
Get far away from “high level” languages that abstract everything away, and actually learn how the computer speaks, then begin speaking to the computer.Â
djhaskin987@reddit
Print statements my man. Lots and lots of print statements.
AlSweigart@reddit
Some questions for you that will help us see where you are at:
How long have you been programming?
What language(s)?
What books, courses, videos, or tutorials are you following?
What projects have you done, either on your own or following in a tutorial?
Are you comfortable using the terminal/command line?
ZeusTKP@reddit
I bet that you've been skipping over concepts before you actually learned them.
Pick a problem that's hard that you have a solution for. What's the first part that you don't understand?
Effective_Promise581@reddit
Use AI. Copy/paste a chunk of code and then ask it to explain how it works. Its a great use of AI.
Xanderlynn5@reddit
There's a very beginning stage where I highly encourage trying stuff to see what does and doesn't work, especially with exercises. Don't be afraid to push run, see It fail, then read the error to try and understand where and why something went wrong. Most languages give you line numbers and google-able stuff to get more info. It's a bad habit later on if you're in industry but brute forcing like that in the early stages is how you begin to understand. I highly recommend learning how to use the debugger and stepping through the code to get more understanding once you get such concepts.
AnotherSkullcap@reddit
You just do it. Over and over. And you think about it. Over and over. You look up different people explaining the concept until you find one who can explain them in a way that you will understand them.
At the end of the day, you're learning languages and the only way to get good at a language is to practice.
SkyMarshal@reddit
Any time you're faced with a problem you don't understand, first make it a smaller problem you do understand. Break it down, assume some parts are already solved, work the smaller parts, etc. Repeat for different sub-components until you begin to grok the bigger problem. Break it down, break it down, break it down.
nobanpls2348738@reddit
Programming is just writing a list of instructions for the computer to follow
aqua_regis@reddit
Start by learning to do your individual research, not wait to be served and spoon fed.
By that I mean that you should search the subreddit before posting as there are more than enough similar posts.
Some book suggestions:
Last: remove AI from your workflow
AverageRonin@reddit
Yea, I have little hope for someone who cant even be bothered to use a search engine.
speedyrev@reddit
Learn logic concepts first, then syntax of a language. Next, move that knowledge to another language syntax. Wash, rinse, repeat.
bathyscaaf@reddit
Break it down into steps using pseudocode. Keep the pseudocode as comments as it will help you figure out where you've gone wrong, refresh your memory if you're coming back to that code after some time, and helps the next coder in case you are hit by a meteorite.
Breaking down complex functions into smaller re-usable functions will help. You will get the hang of when to do this. When a larger, complex-ish function is broken up in this way it can be easier to identify where an issue is.
For example: you need to sort an array of objects by a property of those objects. This ability would likely be useful elsewhere in your code, so make it it's own function that returns the sorted results. Name it something like sortObjectsByProperty. Now if your main function -- that calls sortObjectsByProperty -- is not returning a properly sorted array, you can check the output of sortObjectsByProperty -- a smaller chunk of code, easier to wrap your head around and fix.
So now you have this sorting function... when an error occurs it will seem easier to fix if you know the error is in this function.
If you think a part of your solution might be useful for other problems/function, break that out into it's own function that returns a value so that function is re-usable.
FatDog69@reddit
It's a machine. It does not know english. A computer program is telling a child how to do something.
Did any of your classes ever use the sandwich example? They challenge you write the instructions on how to make a peanut butter sandwich.
Then the instructor tries to follow your instructions and point out where you made assumptions about how the computer knows how to get 2 pieces of bread. Or what to do if you are out of jelly. Spread the peanut butter with a knife - where did the knife come from?
Computers are fast but dumb. You have to make sure they know how to do stuff before it can do anything useful.
TheCableGui@reddit
Everyone goes thru this. And sometimes for some subjects it never gets better. A large part of programming is not knowing what is going on. But people pay you to find out, forcing you to Learn new skills or gain knowledge that helps you solve the problem.
You need to focus on what is really going on, forget abstractions and façades. What is the program doing? What is the desired outcome and what are the steps needed to solve it. All the other stuff minus data types, operating systems and object oriented patterns is all fluff.
dnult@reddit
For me, it's having a black box mentality where I can imagine what's inside the box by the way it behaves. That also allows me to build the box by knowing what I need it to do.
One way to develop that skill is to get familiar with how the program (or device) functions, and then peek at the internals (code) to understand the implementation.
In the software development world, bug fixing and minor enhancements is a great way to develop that way of thinking because you only have to understand a small part of the overall program.
BrannyBee@reddit
Experienced devs understand loop what a loop is doing because they've seen a million loops and written a hundred million. In fact, they understand them well enough ti be able to read code in languages they don't use a lot more often than you realize.
Its just like learning a language or how to type on keyboard, its not about intelligence, its practice. You need to code. Understanding how a loop works is the hard part that requires mental energy. Reading and writing code is like typing, its and often not something experienced devs worry about for 99% of problems.
You think "i need to iterate this value" and it comes out on screen. The hard part of "coding" was mentally knowing you needed to iterate something, why, and the consequences of doing so. If any of your mental energy still is being wasted on remembering keywords, you still need a lot more practice because you're wasting valuable mental energy on the part that impresses beginners but is unironically the most mundane and unimpressive part of making programming.
If you learned to speak Korean, and spoke to me in Korean, I wouldnt be impressed at how you somehow mastered a skill that only a super genius would be able to do, id just respond to you in Korean... we could chat, but maybe an onlookers would see you talking in a foreign language and think you're some gifted genius.. when in reality, you just practiced over a long period of time.
Dont treat code like some crazy skill that requires a brain that is so logical that Spock would be impressed, half of us programmers are freaking idiots. Doesn't matter how smart you are though, me and the other dumbasses here who have written a million failed apps will always be better at programming than you if you dont actually program. Shocking statement i know, coding is how you get better at coding
ToWelie89@reddit
It's a matter of practice. You have to train your brain to work like a programmer. Keep solving programming problems and challenges. Write your own little scripts and programs. You'll get there
Tpmbyrne@reddit
I could understand java ok but had no idea what the fuck was going on with php. One day I smoked weed and did my assignment and bam. I instantly could see the connection between the two languages. Never experienced anything like it before.
ForeignOrder6257@reddit
Start from first principles, build knowledge from the ground up. Understand what goes on underneath the hood
TakeItCeezy@reddit
I had Claude design me a "Claudeversity" class with him for programming and I found that to be extremely helpful. For me, I think the easiest thing to make programming snap is just accepting it as a language. You're telling a machine what to do in a veryhyper-specific way because the machine has no ability to reason, extrapolate or take a guess. You have to tell the computer exactly what to do and how.
The best way to start IMO is to trick yourself. "I am only going to learn about programming for 5 minutes."
Once the first 5 is over, if you're up for it, you keep going and keep doing that for an hour or so. Don't go more than hour (unless you're really, really loving it and having a bunch of fun!) but if you push yourself into 2-4 hours the first day, you might develop a habit of burning yourself out. This is how I trick myself into doing anything.
I never tell myself, "Okay, I am going to spend 2 hours doing X." I say, "Okay, brain. Let's pop this task open for just 5 minutes and take a look." Before I know it, I'm knee deep in the activity and finish the task.
scub_101@reddit
A lot of really good responses here. I do agree with the responses that are gravitating towards the solution that you need to quote, "break" things, and get into the nitty gritty to truly understand the problems. I am a visual learner; having a whiteboard with me when programming helps me visualize some things that throw me off, like lists, arrays, dictionaries, etc.
civil_peace2022@reddit
you have a mental model in your head you run the code through to get a testable output.
then you test what the computer returns to see if it matches.
If they both match, something is clearly wrong and you need to fix it.
if they don't match, something is clearly wrong and you need to fix it.
gradually over time your mental model will improve as you learn things and experience things not working in interesting ways
ExtraTNT@reddit
Do you have a module about functional programming, if so take it…
Why write 4 nested loops, when you can just write what it is… i’m at the point, where i avoid loops and rather use recursion -> don’t just do that, if you do it wrong, you will write the worst code possible…
jack0fsometrades@reddit
Like most jobs, the problems you solve while learning (leet code type stuff) has very little relevance to the actual work you perform on the job. In the simplest terms, programming is more about being able to follow the flow of data through different components or pieces of an application, and then being able to manipulate or direct that data in the intended way.
Do any Udemy course to create an application from end to end and you’ll start to understand how things work.
Master-Ad-6265@reddit
yeah this is normal. it doesn’t just click instantly, it slowly starts making sense after doing a bunch of small problems
B_bI_L@reddit
try to first think how would you solve this exercise in real life, like step by step.
example: - you have to find longest substring without repeating characters - you have to try all possible substrings - string basically has start and end - but making string longer after it already has repeat makes no sense - so we could grow it one by one - now let's go to the lower level - you take string start - you add another character to it - you look if it is already in current string - if yes -> start new string, starting from next char - if no -> add it to existing string and look at next symbol
False_Bear_8645@reddit
Do you have example?
mrburnerboy2121@reddit
To save time, if I were you, I’d look at beginner coding exercises on YouTube and look for an explanation as to why the person has solved it that way. Or use AI to break down the coding question so you understand how you arrive at a solution.
You need to understand what is being asked of you and to understand the terminology in which the question is being asked.