Not a complaint or cry for help. Just wanted to vocalize how topsy-turvy my brain feels after trying to wrap my head around a lot of these. I’m only halfway through the Intermediate Algorithms section, and if I close my eyes I just see a bunch of curly braces and semi-colons.
Trying to figure out how to chain functions into each other, especially with the higher-order array and string methods, has been pretty challenging. Figuring out what regular expressions to use to properly match or test a string has got me forgetting actual human speech. Determining whether to use .map(), .filter(), .every(), .reduce(), etc, etc, is making hours go by in a flash.
I’m glad to have gotten through all the challenges so far, and my favorite part is seeing how close I came to matching the “Intermediate” and “Advanced” solutions. It’s got me reading up on some more advanced topics, although I have to admit that some of it still goes over my head.
Does it get easier, in the sense that all these disparate parts will start clicking together more often? I see how to connect various pieces, again going back to the chaining together of functions. However, sometimes I forget the most elementary lessons, and when I’ve typed up a zillion lines and found the advanced solutions to be one line, I can’t help but facepalm.
How do you compartmentalize all of these things you’re learning and improve your chances of making the right recollections during any particular exercise?
Learning to program is mostly a series of concepts clicking in your head. Until each one clicks, you feel slow and stupid, but afterwards you can’t understand how you didn’t get it before.
Pushing yourself will make your brain feel foggy, but that’s a good thing - it means you are being challenged, and it means you are learning. Give it time and practice; it will click into place.
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I am personally restarting the fcc curriculum and have just moved back into the javascript section. I completed the intermediate algorithms once before and I’m interested to see how it goes the second time around. What I will say is the first time around was very frustrating. I had no knowledge of js previous to this but the puzzles make you learn it pretty well. It does start to click after a while, you start solving these problems and once you come up with the solution it gets to the point of thinking “Wow, how did I not figure that out before?.” It takes a lot of extra reading outside of the curriculum to get those algorithms solved, but they are very possible and feel very good when you solve them!
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The only thing that’s been working for me is to practice, a lot. New or more advanced concepts/features can take some time to kick in; the more you expose yourself to it (be it reading other people’s code or trying to use them in your own work), the quicker you get used to it.
I used to find ES6 features and higher-order functions too abstract; but once I got used to it and see how much they improve my code, there’s no going back!
So yes, it definitely gets better! Just keep up the good work!
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