this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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Programming

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How exactly does one get better at programming? (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 days ago by chrischryse@lemmy.world to c/programming@programming.dev
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So I’m an on/off noobie but have been focusing on actually sticking with programming what I’ve been working on is Python but this question is for programming in general. For me it’s hard but I want to see how I can get better

Like are these good ways to get good:

Follow tutorials, then work on ways of adding your own twists or changes? Or trying to code it in something else?

Work on assignments from a resource you’re using like in my case Python Crash Course and attempt to redo the assignments without looking back?

Experiment with multiple libraries and library methods or built in methods?

Please share any other ways especially ones that helped you

Also when would be good to start a new language after learning one

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[–] QuizzaciousOtter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago

Following tutorials and courses is definitely a very popular way of learning programming but I personally hate it. For me, the motivation was always a problem to solve, and programming was just a tool to solve it. Of course, you probably need to follow some kind of guided experience to gather the absolute fundamentals, but to get better you just need to apply this in practice.

The first ever problem I decided to solve with programming was organizing pirated video files into manageable directory structure. I knew almost nothing about programming at this point and my thought process was something like this:

  1. Which programming language should I use? Search the web, read a bunch of articles, make a decision. I chose Python.
  2. Ok, first I need to find the files to process. Search the web for "get files in a folder Python". Read a bunch of answers (never just a single one!). Apply the solution.
  3. Now I need to somehow discern between movies and series episodes. Search the web for "check if text contains text Python".
  4. Repeat until you have a working program...

Now, the most important part of this is to have an idea for a project which either solves a real problem of yours or just is exciting to you. Some examples of my projects:

  • Due to weird grading system used in my school, calculating GPA was pretty inconvenient. I decided to solve this with programming. I wanted to make the solution easily available to my teammates so I created a web app.
  • I wanted to control my smart TV using a computer. I knew it can be controlled using Android application so it seemed likely that I can do the same using my PC.
  • I bought a smart lightbulb and I was playing with setting it to different colors while listening to music. A thought suddenly popped up: "hey, can I make it blink to the music?".

When starting most of these projects I had no idea how to approach the problem. So I just searched the web until I knew it. In the beginning you will probably be searching and reading much more than writing code. But that's a good thing! Programming (or rather software engineering) is not about typing out code, it's about breaking down the problem into smaller chunks until you actually know how to solve each of the chunks with the tools you have at hand. Once you have this understanding, writing code is usually rather easy.