It's refreshing to hear a take on this topic that is positive and takes into account psychology, rather than the typical fear-mongering and workaholism.
Not necessarily.. learning 'arcane' programming languages comes up in surprising ways - a reducer function is a like a lisp collector. Dan Grossman's UW Programming Languages is an epic intro/precursor to coding in ''modern' languages.
For me it take half an hour to an hour to get in the coding zone lol. When I'm programming I usually program for like 3-4 hours. Not criticizing or anything, do whatever helps you the best :)
@@Setofhornsandahalo Agree if you can't even code for 4 hours how you going to handle a full time job? Where you have to code at least 6-10 hours per day (10 hours doing deadlines)
I am 44 years old and I started 4 months ago full time 7 days a week 10 hours a day some times a lot more, my brain feels broken some days. Brick walls are very common and most days i wonder if Im going to make it. Stefan is so right!! I may have gone sideways on many occasions and probably trying to learn to many languages at once. Thanks for all your inspiration Stefan as your videos keep me from giving up, I just wish I watched some videos sooner rather than later lol.👍
Hello David, this is fast forward to 2022. I am Sheriff and 44yrs old. I started programming 2 months ago and I will appreciate if you can share your experience with me. Thanks
@@sherifflekan9775 I'm 40 yrs old and I just started to learn coding c# and .net one month ago! Hopefully, you're doing great in coding. Any advise you can share it with us that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
@@ahmedfattal9569 Started with Python, then Java, now Javascript + HTML + CSS; it's a tough journey especially without a willing mentor. What I have learnt so far is to learn to get comfortable with difficult/uncomfortable situations and firstly to solve/apply logic before delving into writing the codes. I have it easy to understand the programming languages but application is paramount, and I this lies all obstacles 😃. Kindly share your progress so far
Hey David. I am 37 and just started web development course learning html, css and js. All brand new. Good to hear your testimony but I am glad I found this and the video early on. Thought I was nuts for only an hour a morning.
@@Silver_Surfer85 sorry for the late reply, hope all is going well with your web development course. My advice is to stick with the three languages your learning and dont over do it. Also keep watching Stefan he was a great inspiration for me.👍
"You leave wanting more." Pretty interesting that I need to do it to get in a habit of learning easily and not exhaust myself, Thanks for the knowledge!
I'm someone who works in retail and I am learning to code because I want a career change and this video has helped a lot. I do leave my sessions wanting more and I love that. I think I have been doing about 1 hour to 1 and a half hour a day. I think that is my threshold for now. I like that you aren't hammering newbies to do 10+ hours a day. That would wreck my mind
Just wanna say: jumping straight into a full time education also work for some. Worked for me. Don’t necessarily keep putting it off taking a full time class just because you think you must start light first. (If you’re a procrastinator like me, you sometimes need to jump head first into things) i jumped straight into a full time class. I was overwhelmed at first but turned out I kinda like the style of learning. Found it especially rewarding to have class mates rather than studying on my own.
I love these kinds of topics because it reminds me that I'm only human. Some people would have me think there is something wrong with me and I'm way too slow. Coding proficiency takes time and persistence. I have to say, this summer I am finding that my progress has increased 10 fold compared to previous years.
I was the total opposite about learning. I crammed as much as humanly possible for three months straight, and I don't regret a moment. If I'm interested in the subject matter, then there's no limit to how much I want to learn about it. I've since slowed down, but that's because now it's easier to understand the details of what I'm doing and what I'm looking at, so I don't need to research all the terms like I did in the beginning. If I had gone slower, idk if I would have stayed as motivated about coding: I had to learn everything on my own, and since I had literally zero base knowledge about it, I had a lot of ground to cover. I do agree that learning is generally best done in chunks, but an exception emerges when you find an unexpected passion completely out of nowhere. Then it's easy.
I like your energy. It's mellow and down to earth. It's a contrast from the "make money fast" genre on the web. You also talk about body and mental flexibilty. You provide solid financial, mental, and physical advice. Thank you
0:00 - 0:30, I should've listened to this. When I first started, I tried learning everything as quickly as possible and burnt out. I would quit, start again with the same "learn everything" mindset and get burnt out again. I've learned from experience that programming takes time. You HAVE to take it slow.
This is what i do usually do a tutorial for 30 mins a day minimum...three months now and realised there's still so much i dont understand... should i up the time i spend on day to day programming? Or just stick with my current routine. Thank you
@@naniv It should've been incremental. Like the more time passes, the higher your increase the time you spend on it daily. It shouldn't stay at 30 mins indefinitely.
I like your practical advice about the amount of time required each day. You see people throw out ridiculous numbers, like 3+ hours a day, which for most people who have to earn a living is just impractical and very likely to get skipped after the first couple of days. Setting a steady, achievable goal each day is much more likely to become a habit than trying to become John Carmack in a fortnight.
I do three hours of coding-related study/work over a 24hr period: morning - 1 hour tutorial afternoon - 1 hr of lab-work evening - 1 hr of project/portfolio time It seems to be working so far.
Love your video! You're so down to earth. Today's my first day learning code, after thinking about it for years. Done it for 2 hours. And I'm going to stop. Ready to do more tomorrow!
Appreciate all of the solid advice that you give for free. Between your videos, the odin project and freecodecamp I feel I have everything I need to build a new, lucrative career for myself.
The best video that I have seen about this because most of the videos tell you that spent around 4 or 6 hours coding every day which I think is crazy and one of the reasons that I saw impossible learn, thank you for this
Great advice. I remember starting coding with a target of five hours (until 1am) a day with no breaks. After three weeks I gave up. My brain and body had enough. The challenges of coding, the long hours, work related fatigue etx just added up. Well I am back now and do max 1 hour a day. I'll ramp it up slightly in a few weeks.
Pretty much in the same boat. Considering to push myself back from 4 hours to 1 - 2 hours a day until I feel comfortable enough to increase it slightly.
Hi Stefan. English is my Second language but the way "YOU" explain learn coding for beginners its excelllent. Thanks for your Advice.I will fellow your foot steps.
One thing I love about Mr.Stefan's video is that he addresses so many real world issues. I have given up so many times earlier just because I try to hard, going full force into a subject only to get exhausted and unmotivated and later drop. Thank you so much, it is so re assuring that learning to code is a long journey and you are not going to reach the end anyways so why make it such a chore.
So much great advice in here. I was doing java in a job I hated with miserable people. I since left that job and picked up Python again to do my own projects. Now I’m doing a couple of hours a day and having a lot of fun learning!
A very inspirational vlog Stefan! I'm coming back into coding after wandering the desert for 20 years - back in the day at college we did MS DOS, BASIC and COBOL - but i always struggled with programming languages (in COBOL if the syntax was not 100% correct nothing worked) - now I have discovered really cool creative coding languages such as html5 and CSS and Java script - they are so much more easy to start getting results quickly with not much experience. For my mind body and spirit - I'm going to combine coding with Mindfulness - then later on write my book The Mindful Coder :)
golden advice, well explained in a psychological way which makes it so much better to implement, stef really shows us the psychology of a programmer and how their brains works which is the most important thing required to be a successful programmer
Hi Stefan, I just found your channel, I love it, I’m super inspired, I’m 54, I’m an experienced artist, graphic designer, videographer & traditional artist. However, lately I found coding to be something I loved too. I just started learning on RU-vid & enjoy what I’m learning. You are such a great inspiration to me, making me much more confident that at my age I can still pursue a different career in my life. Thanks so much!
These are my early days in learning programming. I am following self learning path and i must say that so far you are the first TEACHER of IT field that i have met on RU-vid. *Sir* Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
love your choice of music. the other day, music before a cast was also something that I said: wow what it that? the phones had been silent for a while, and then that music started..
This is all solid excellent advice. I've studied the psychology of learning and these tips implement scientifically proven principles. @4:05 is an especially great tip. I just signed up for a couple of courses in studioweb (best offer on the net!); glad I did!
Amazing, so refreshing. Not just advice about why to do programming but also how to balance it with your life and have that fulfillment. I’m just starting now so I’m glad I watched this. Thanks a lot, Stefan!
man this is great advice. no matter if its drumming, coding, working out, singing, piano, whatever it is I always do it excessively and i tend to lose my drive due to burn out quickly. this is fantastic advice Stefan. i really appreciate your point of view!
Hey look man. I really love that you're doing this. Every time I watch a video of yours I feel so grateful for a person like you to share your knowledge with us. I hope you never stop.
By the way, the thing about 'literally rewiring the brain' -- I have never heard anyone else say it but I firmly believe that to be true. It changes you. The code changes you :)
When you said 30 minutes I was like 😧 because I’ve started with 4+ hours a day learning every concept JS right after mastered CSS. But it’s important to settle down new things taking the time
Absolutely true and very helpful. I worked like this when I started learning music initially as a child, and now I am trying to apply the same principle to learning code. Thank you, sir!
He’s right. I’m was recently let go from my employer. Decided to pivot. Now I’m in a full time bootcamp. It’s a good school. But my brain melts about halfway through.
Ive never been a structural oriented person, and I started HTML and Javascript today and I totally agree with your brain changing. Thank you very very much!!!
I found your video very helpful, as a person just at the starting block of the coding race. I guess what you said about how to progress in learning "organically" rather than "exponentially" is quite universal. I had a boss who was an ex-US Navy commander and a good leader of men. One of his favorite axioms, is "Crawl-Walk-Run". Best advise I ever got from him and now pretty much the same from you. looking forward to seeing more videos from you on the subject of coding. Cheers
Def taking your advice. I've noticed when I study in shorter intervals like you're saying I enjoy it each time I come back instead of trying to sit there for hours because I want to continue learning but start to become frustrated. Your advice makes so much more sense then how some bootcamps are set up, especially the accelerated options.
I studied IT over 10 years ago and did not work as a software developer until now, when I feel like I've never done any programming before. For me, my motivation, is the independence and freedom it gives me.
Thanks for all the advices, i have trouble to start programming for a lot of years, im scare i think, maybe this is the year to finally begin. Really thanks!
Absolutely 💯 correct. Look around bootcamp they put students on 12-14 hours a day!! For 5 months!! This will get people to quit coding 3 years down the road.
I'm in a C++ bootcamp, its basically 3 semesters in one. I gotta admit that I'm losing enthusiasm for coding, college is a terrible way to learn to code. Good thing I'm almost done, thanks for the tips uncle Stef!
"How many hours a day should be spent learning how to code? This depend largely on where you are in the process. If you're first starting out, you're totally new to code, then you should limit to 30-45min/day. So why limit? Because you don't wanna overflowing your brain with all the new knowledge all this new way of thinking." *SUBSCRIBED* listen to this men, he knows what he's talking about, samething happened to me, almost quit cause my brain was feeling like a hot engine, but took 2 days break refreshed and restarted with a limit of 2 hours a day.
its so true my problem is that i am seriously addicted to coding, and some times is hard for me to stop, when i wake up the next day my brain feels like is melting and i feel tired. i do 3d modeling in 3ds max, recently started learning c++ and i love it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge about the matter, you are great master, its nice to ear from you.
Wise words as always. Yet I learned 6-10 hrs a day for months, then 3-5 hrs daily for years. I had a passion and drive to learn. Besides, I think you have to devote a large chunk of time because chopping learning time doesn't work well, you have to immerse yourself into the problem that you are solving. There is no shortcut in learning how to code. Either you invest time and effort, or you don't. After so many years you still have to spend at least an hr or two per day because technology is changing so fast. Gone are the days of wonderful C language that you could apply without re-earning every year or so. Now with modern frameworks and langs you have to adapt every year to new rules, syntax, ways of doing things. If you won't there is always someone who does. It's not a career for everyone.
I spend at least 4-6 hrs and last summer I spend a whole day everyday to learn Python 3.7. I took your Python 3.x course and almost finish it. I took three different online courses to learn Python 3.7 which is you Stefan, Skillshare, and Udemy. When I first started in programming in C++ or Python3.7 just give me a headache but I succeeded
In fact, it's probably best to build a rock-solid foundation of all the basics through repetition. If it's too boring to do that, this field is probably not for you. I'm going to repetitiously replay the basics to really inculcate this new information into my brain so that the more advanced material will eventually sink in and fall into place.
Stefan great motivational video. I especially liked the analogy with going to the gym. true dat. Btw I request for more flutter coverage. I see more full fledge apps built with it even by banking apps recently.
I'm impressed you remember this after having started 25 years ago. I'm about a year into coding and for the first 6 months I thought I had a learning deficiency and wouldn't be able to ever really learn to code working programs, mainly due to the liars who would make posts saying "Thank you so much, I spent 4+ hours a day for the last month and now I found my first job and am working with _____". Sorry, that's BS! Going from absolute zero experience to working in the field will not happen in a month or two or three and that expectation shouldn't be out there. It's unrealistic. I'm a fairly intelligent person who has always picked things up quickly and now, after a year of work, I can efficiently build an interactive webpage that will take user submitted data, process it with a back-end python script and return a result. I am just now getting into MySQL and Database programming. Do not have unrealistic expectations. Either you enjoy it or you don't. If you don't, you won't ever cross the barrier of creation and will only ever hope to be a high-skilled data entry specialist. Which is fine, but just have realistic expectations or you will be severely let down.
I remember my first pro code gig, only 7.5 hours a day, but I used to come home absolutely frazzled, as I was going from more or less ground zero....totally exhausting and given 3 months to either make it or get the sack. The language I was taught (actually there was no training program, it was sink or swim) was turbo pascal 7....ha. Then moved onto Delphi. There was a delphi guru back in the day who said he coded 10 hours every day, he wrote a indy for delphi (a socket library which nobody here has probably heard of). 10 hours is still inconcievable to me (and I wouldn't want to anyway)
I remember Stef from 1884. He was already over 400 years old but still looked about 680 years old. You know he invented web programming? He wrote the first version of Waddy Press.
