Hey guys, been programming for a month now and in the middle of the intermediate algorithms portion. I did all the intermediate projects that used API’s and am struggling very much still with JS and algorithms as a whole to the point where I need to check how someone else solved it nearly every time. It helps me understand the problem, but I feel like I’m cheating. Am I just not cut out for it?
Reading and understanding other people’s solutions is a different skill than coming up with solutions. They’re both important, but they’re not the same. Think of writing books. Reading books requires skills that are necessary to writing a book, and the more books you read the better writer you’d probably be, but reading books doesn’t teach you how to write a book. I’m not trying to say that you should never look at solutions when you get stuck, but it sounds like you might be relying on it too much and you need to build up your other solution techniques. Now that you’ve read and copied those solutions, if you go back to earlier challenges, can you actually solve them now without looking at the solutions again? If not, I recommend going through them again and this time don’t allow yourself to peek. Use other resources (the greatest of which is this community who are happy to answer questions about code instead of giving you code).
These are skills that take time to build, and that can mean a lot of difficult or tedious work.
2 Likes
I appreciate it. Thank you 