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Ask questions and iterate

learning programming

The common recommendation for "getting good" at programming is to build projects. Figure out something that you want to build—something you're interested in—and build it. You'll learn along the way.

While the intuition is rational—challenge yourself with hands-on practice—there's a missing component essential to learning that often doesn't take place on a large project level: iteration.

I came across this video a couple of months ago that touched on this idea well. His simple plea, put forward in the first 2 seconds of the video, is to iterate. Code. Don't try to make everything perfect. Fail fast. Do it again.

It's an idea that's really stuck with me, particularly because in the last couple years, I've built what others might call impressive projects while also feeling immense stagnation in my own skill level. The two primary reasons for this, as I see it, are:

  1. Regularly switching stacks

  2. Working on the same projects for months at a time

It's almost certainly a good thing to expose yourself to new technologies, especially in the field of programming. However, within the context of learning, switching stacks too often impedes repetition in one stack. Yes, you get exposed to new concepts, you are presented with new challenges, and if all goes well, you come up with solutions to those challenges. But long-term retention doesn't take place by doing something once, and this applies to working with a stack, writing form validation, using django-admin startproject mystupidproject ., or learning how to say "Good evening" (Konbanwa!) in Japanese.

If you built some project that people fawn over and you use it as proof of your own proficiency in x technology, but you still have to go back to the Quickstart guide to initialize a project with that technology, something is wrong with your strategy, and you're not proficient.

So if you want to learn, iterate. Yes, build projects, but build lots of projects. Challenge yourself, ask questions about how to solve those challenges, solve them, then do it again, and again, and again, until you have no questions left.

Then challenge yourself by fucking it all up and start over.

Then, if you really want, you can go play with a new stack.