Coding is like going to the gym, if you stop working, when you are back you feel useless!
I left two months ago, because of life…
Now I read my late code I wrote (the random quote gen and the early algorithms) and I feel it was writen by Stephen Hawking or something…
Hopefully I am here to stay now!!!
Just do you best to pick up where you left off. You may find that you have to review stuff and that it takes a while to get back up to speed, but I wouldn’t recommend going backwards and redoing challenges from an arbitrary earlier point.
You only feel useless but don’t think for a moment that you lost that knowledge or experience.
It’s amazing how the brain stores these things - they seem lost but just a refresher will bring them back.
Breaks are good whether they are forced or not.
For example, I studied lots of math in University about 20 years ago and mostly forgot all of it because my life took a different path and I didn’t apply any of these concepts. Lately I started reading some of those mathematical concepts again and I understood them more easily than I would have if I had never seen them before, even though I had forgotten them. Anything you learn you can easily forget but your brain will generally have an easier time relearning it again. Like you, I sometimes read code I wrote several weeks or months ago and it looks strange at first, but it comes back to me after a few re-reads. This is a good example of why comments in code are so important.
Keep at it and good luck!
Breaks happen to everyone. Here is what I do:
When studying I take notes on the things I find important.
After a break I take a couple of days to review the notes.
Then I pickup where I left.
Works for me.
Good luck!