Hi, I’ve just started teaching myself coding, I’ve decided to teach myself code because it seems really useful considering how fast technology is advancing. I also like the idea of learning it to keep my mind sharp. I’m just curious, how important is consistency for a beginner starting out? I’m trying to do 4 hours a day but am starting at 1-2 hours and hopefully working up to more hours. Also, I have just completed HTML and starting CSS I’m noticing some stuff I’m not remembering. Is it best to go over the previous lessons or wait until later when I do the projects to review stuff I may have forgotten? I was thinking about using flash cards for certain confusing concepts and using active recall for all the rest.
You do not have to memorize all the coding from what I been told, but you do have to understand how they work.( You will naturally remember them as more time passes, if you however forget them, search them up on google )
If there were things were confusing to you, I 100% recommend you to review them.
Hi @Taylor93 !
Welcome to the forum!
Consistency is really important.
Just try to do a little bit each day.
Life happens and things do come up so you might not be able to code that day.
That is completely understandable.
But you don’t want to code a for a little while and take two weeks off, and repeat the cycle.
You will never learn that way.
Focus more on quality than quantity.
It is more important to have a productive study session for 1-2 hours than an unproductive one that lasts 4 hours.
That’s completely normal.
As you start to learn more languages then you will find yourself looking up things more and more.
I just started getting back into python and I have to look up certain syntax features because it is different from what I am used to in JavaScript.
It is completely fine to use google.
Over time you will start to remember more of the basic concepts but you will always have to look something up.
If you are at the projects stage of the responsive design curriculum, then I would just suggest reviewing the lessons you need to for that particular project.
There is no need to repeat the whole curriculum.
Hope that helps!
Yes, consistency is the key. You will need it in the process, motivation is really good, but not enough, it can decay. However if you are disciplined enough to learn at least a little thing everyday, your coding skills eventually will improve.
Personally, I don´t recommend it. When working with every programming language, you are not expected to know every detail. The purpose of your practice is to create something. If you forgot, or don´t know some stuff, just google it.
Congratulations for making the decision of learning to code.
Best Wishes
Consitency in terms of time is important, but not as important as consistency in terms of quality is more important. Its different to spend 4 hours watching youtube videos on coding, than it is to spend 1 hour doing something “hands on” and challenging.
Focusing on memorization means focusing on memorizing anything and everything, rather than focusing on learning what is important when and where. Its understanding the context of what your learning will be missed out by sheer memorization. If you remember something exists, what its called and when/why you’d use it, you can always look it up.
Furthermore, focusing on memorization might mean you memorize the wrong things, and miss out on the more important key things you might need more often. To find out whats important for what your doing requires you to really go out and just “do stuff”. While “doing stuff” you will run into similar problems again and again, solve them again, and slowly get them into muscle memory.
Getting stuff into muscle memory is the end goal, but how you go about getting there is the key.
This is natural, continue to move forward, and if you find your forgetting something you might of learned, see if you can find help online for whatever problem your trying to figure out. The act of getting presented a problem you may or may not have run into, and then finding solutions to that problem is the core skill you will need throughout the process. Don’t expect to be presented with a problem and always know 100% how to solve it instantly through memory alone, there are too many complex problems out there to memorize.
Good luck, keep building keep learning
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