I’ve recently completed the algorithm section and I’m seeking advice. I did not fully understand all of the concepts, for example regular expressions, apply and call, and I find the Mozilla Developer Network pages pretty difficult to understand!
The question is, should I stop and make sure I fully understand all of this before going on, or just keep at it? I’m torn between the extremes of “I don’t get this / coding isn’t my thing” and “no one gets it, just keep moving and figure it out later”. Thanks for any tips!
I’d personally stop until I fully grasp the concepts, then you can move on, otherwise you could call it “wasted time” because you just wrote an algorithm, but don’t know how it works.
It depends. If you feel like you don’t get the concepts, then I recommend redoing the exercises you feel iffy on and reading about those concepts while you do them to help you understand. You might also look up youtube videos on those topics.
Having said that, jumping to the projects would force you to learn many concepts because you can’t do the projects without them, and imho, practice makes for some of the most impressionable and memorable learning. Some of the projects took me a really long time, but that struggle can help the concepts stick.
I’m going back through the algorithms after completing the projects as a refresher and to help myself learn ES6 concepts. Repetition does help with mastery so don’t feel bad if you don’t get it the first time out of the gate.
Thanks for the advice. It’s hard to know how comfortable one should feel with the concepts. I get the feeling the approach here is to not feel comfortable at all – always feeling challenged
I as well find mozilla … hard to understand … so next best thing is to google eg goggle call bind javascript … i then go watch a video from the video section of the results … and i learn that way… for me this is better than reading
What I have learned from learning is that you learn better when what you learn is immediately useful to you, possibly because it helps appreciate why it is, as it is. RegEx are incredible, but they take some time to get into. For now, I’d say, you can be satisfied with what you HAVE learned, among other things: RegEx exist and they are a powerful way of finding and replacing text in more text. Eventually, you can revisit them, work on a small project involving them and learn to appreciate them.
I always have a list of things in my head that I don’t know yet, but want to learn It tends to get bigger over time, but that’s ok, I don’t wanna run out out things to learn.
PS: I love MDN, but a lot of beginners seemhave similar problems as you do. I guess its the terminology and wording that makes it hard for people who haven’t read lots of documentation. I’m sure you’ll get into that over time, if W3 schools works better for you, there’s nothing wrong with it. (I’ve heard they worship Satan but who cares, right? )
PPS:
On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
(That’s a relief!)
You pose a very interesting question. And the honest answer is, “it depends”. If you really struggled through the algorithms and right now you don’t understand your own solutions, then you should go back and re-evaluate what you did and understand why it works.
If you are instead realizing that you don’t completely understand the concepts of regular expressions, functional programming, etc., then I’d suggest you keep moving on. I’ve been programming professionally coming up on 20 years now and I still find myself coming back to these concepts and learning / discovering more. I find it fascinating that the JavaScript programming language supports some of the most complex CompSci ideas and constructs, like regular expressions and first class functions. Learning these ideas isn’t a matter of rote memorization, it actually will change how you think about problems. As such, it’s not going to happen overnight, and that’s ok. Just keep reading, learning and practicing and things will come.
It tends to get bigger over time, but that’s ok, I don’t wanna run out out things to learn.
)