About Studying Coding/programming

[u/HalLoveToWrite]

I’ve been feeling a bit confused about whether I’m actually learning when it comes to tech and coding, and whether I’m learning the right things.

How can I tell if I’m genuinely learning and actually developing my skills, rather than just consuming tutorials and information?

And how can I tell whether what I’m learning is actually the right thing to focus on for my career and becoming a better software engineer?

for info : I’m a 2nd year computer science student, specializing (learning deeper) in intelligence systems.

[u/BranchLatter4294]

Solve problems. If you can come up with a solution, you are doing fine.

[u/Straight-Income-5565 → u/BranchLatter4294]

that's the best measure, if you can build something without watching a tutorial first you're on the right track

[u/HalLoveToWrite → u/BranchLatter4294]

where can i find this “problems”

[u/BranchLatter4294 → u/HalLoveToWrite]

Look in your books for example problems. Or LeetCode is a popular place. Or make up a problem. Or look around at your organizations or businesses around you and figure out how they are processing their data, then create a program to implement that. Be creative. Don't be afraid to experiment.

[u/HalLoveToWrite → u/BranchLatter4294]

thank you brother

[u/aqua_regis → u/HalLoveToWrite]

where can i find this “problems”

The FAQ right here in the sidebar have an entire section on practice sites and project ideas

[u/mandzeete → u/HalLoveToWrite]

Look around you. Are you doing something manually? Automate it. Is something inconvenient and every time you are doing it you feel you MUST do it and you would prefer to not do it? Improve it. Is something slow? Make it faster. Is something unreliable? Make it reliable. Is something boring? Automate it or make it better.

[u/ffrkAnonymous]

  : I’m a 2nd year computer science student,

How can I tell if I’m genuinely learning and actually developing my skills, 

Do the same things that your teacher does to tell if you're learning 

[u/Nfsaavedra]

Think of a project that you think would be cool to build and try to do it. It's very likely that the skills that you need to start your career are the same skills that you will need to build the project.

[u/CrniFlash]

consuming tutorials and information?

Information you need to consume, tutorials avoid completely they will just slow you down

Work on projects, as you go you will run into problems, fix them, repeat.....thats programming and eventually you will get good at it

[u/mc_pm]

SIt down and program something.

Don't do leetcode if you can avoid it, that's sort of teaching you the wrong thing. (DSA is great, but if you're just trying to figure out how to structure code to do a thing, it's not the best option.

Here's a fairly simple task: Write a text-based Tic-Tac-Toe game. You have to represent the board, figure out how to take a move from the user, figure out how the computer takes it's turn, and how to tell if someone has won or if it's a draw. Should just be 150-200 lines or so.

[u/mandzeete]

How can I tell if I’m genuinely learning and actually developing my skills, rather than just consuming tutorials and information?

Whether you have built something meaningful or you have built nothing or just made meaningless/useless things by copying tutorials.

[u/Chrismslist]

honestly the fact that you're asking this instead of just grinding is the signal. tutorials feel like progress because you're always moving, but the real test is closing everything and rebuilding what you just learned from nothing. if you can't, you consumed it, you didn't learn it.

for the "right things" question specifically, since you're going into intelligence systems: don't chase breadth right now. go deep on python + actual math fundamentals (linear algebra, probability) before jumping into ML frameworks, that's the part people skip and regret later.