This is Why Programming Is Hard For you 

To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/TheCodingSloth . You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription. I hope this video helped any of you who felt stuck when learning to program. Better start thinking like a programmer and not rely on tutorials. EDIT: I LOVE PRIMES CONTENT. I USED HIS IMAGES FOR MEMES/ENTERTAINMENT ONLY NO HATE

I stopped watching tutorials when I realized I could read the documents by my self and honestly speaking. Reading docs is so much better than watching tutorials.

Realistically speaking I built a full stack website for a local client the website was simple I used bootstrap for the UI and node for backend with MongoDB for storage. The project was relatively simple but i remember just how frustrated and stressed I was when I was coding it. Yelling back and forth at ChatGPT. Trying to scrape through stack overflow. Today (6 months later) i opened the code again and I was blown away just how simple it was. The point being that: what you find hard today wouldn't be as hard in the future, the point is to keep going and keep learning. Cause remember: the more you F**k around the more you find out.

im so cooked

This year i landed a great web developer position starting at $30/hour full time. I love it because all the hours i am putting in is making my programming skills WAY better by working 8 hours a day writing and testing and debugging and getting feedback. Its been a great experience and praise the Lord i got this job.

As a HTML engineer, I disagree

One of the hardest parts of coding for me is that often you can't see all the tools at tools at your disposal. When I'm doing electrical work & get stumped I can go over to my toolbox, open it up & just have a poke around to see if there's a tool or combination of tools that might do the job or at least inspire the solution. With digital tools its much harder to look at all your options.

I thought I was the only person in the world who kept saying to myself "Maybe this isn't for me" every time I struggled to work out a problem or thinking why isn't this concept sinking in. I can't stop thinking about a coding problem when I have one and I'm so mentally exhausted after I finally crack it that I feel like I've just been to war. Perseverance is definitely necessary when coding in my experience, as is having fun solving problems. Spent many nights screaming at my monitor, but the feeling you get when you finally solve the problem is amazing. Very funny video btw.

My problem is I need everything DEEPLY explained to me to fully grasp it

Something I'd like to add is to read up on books on software development like Pragmatic Programmer, Martin Fowler's books, etc. It helps with the foundation of your skills

8 minutes in I realize I’m just watching a really well crafted ad for Brilliant. You don’t need tutorials, you need Brilliant. smh.

If the author of the *The Coding Sloth* won't mind, a few timestamps...) 0:00 - 6:11 the definition of the problem _Why Programming Is Hard For you_ Tips by *The Coding Sloth* : 6:12 Tip 1: Break down problems 8:36 Tip 2: Project - based learning 9:05 Tip 3: The Feynman technique 9:43 Tip 4: Embrace failure as a learning tool. Fail stands for: First Attempt In Learning 9:57 Tip 5: Practice Regularly and for a long period of time 10:17 Tip 6: Stop comparing yourself to others Thank you, *The Coding Sloth* , for your doings!!! Great Job!!! 🙏🙏🙏🙏

Great breakdown, failing and making errors doing real things is often the best teacher

I couldn't agree more, people think its just another language, how hard can it be, but in reality its much more than that because copying a script will never be the same as writing one. To write one, you must know exactly what you're doing.

As a programmer, I love Zachtronics games because they test your logical thinking AND coding skills, particularly Shenzhen I/O. It's basically a simulation of building and programming microcontrollers where your physical space is limited, you can only use a small number of assembly-like instructions and you often have to think about how the blocks are running in parallel. Using the average example listed, there is a task that requires you to keep a running average of the last X values, you are limited to integers between -999 and 999 and you have no division instruction.

Programming isn't hard. Finding work is hard

As a software student, who feel lost and nearly give up on my major, thank you very much for this video

I believe i am well on my way to becoming a competent programmer. I feel like what really has helped is just doing projects that inspire me, often times things that solve a problem i have. I just wish i could land a job, feel like that is even harder than learning to program.

This video helped and freed me, definitely right on time. Thank you so much!!!! I'm implementing the steps like coding for an hour, teaching myself and simplifying. Thanks again, this rocks!

Well put man, well put. Im a jr javascript dev and i studied JS like crazy and it did not prepare me for the logical thinking and how to use the things i learned to solve issues. Learned that the hard way.

I had completely given up on learning gamedev because it was so overwhelming, and I thought it just wasn't for me. But this has made me realize it is overwhelming for everyone. So I guess I'll keep going. Thank you.

This is a very valuable video for me. I have seen a lot of videos saying this but this video really open my eyes with its detailed explanation. Thank you, the coding sloth.

Funnily enough, this is what I was explaining yesterday to a first year student as a senior. I told him that it is more about solving problems and making practical solutions and less about the nemorizing the concepts.

If you want to understand programming fast, and actually love it,learn discrete math and DSA, programming will never be a problem, this is actually the foundation and meaning of a computer science degree.

One of my instructors while I was in school taught us to break the problem down in simple terms. Instead of looking at it as numbers, data, and elements, look at them in something that makes more sense to you. For me, as an aviation mechanic, it was easier to think of the items of the terms of airplane hydraulic fluid moving through the system. This helped me so much.

Watching this while I am stuck at work with a problem and I feel stupid and thinking how my other developpers friends are just leagues ahead of me and how undeserving of the job I have, so yeah, it is hard

I learnt programming in the 80s. But at first I did not know that I am learning programming. I was interested in books about math and logic and I really liked to solve logical problems. Then I read about computers and I remember, how I basically asked people things like: "How you can make computer to do this?" and then I met my friend's father, who was professor of computer science and he gave me some more books about computers, algorithms and math to study. And then I've got to use real computer for the first time. It was ZX Spectrum+2 with Z80 CPU and 128K of RAM. It was very slow and had Basic in its ROM and then I have learned assembly, because that was the only way, how to get at least some speed from it. Later, I learned more languages and computers got much better too. I work as software developer more than 25 years now and I am always learning new things. Computers, languages, and everything else have changed a lot in the past 40 years, but one thing remains the same: The problem solving. Analyzing the problem, breaking it down into blocks, functions and features. Deciding, how to address each of the problems and how to tie them back together later. Programing is not that difficult, if you approach it from the right side.

This is really reassuring because I’m trying to learn JS and have a good understanding of troubleshooting and solving “the puzzle” of getting something how I want it. I started by writing down what every line of code did

Bro, your cooking analogy is awesome! Subbed.

Valid points! And shout out to my fellow Web Dev Cody for his cameo! Haha. I liked how you structured your points for the UNDERSTANDING of the coding and programming.

Great timing needed this right now ❤

Can we just take a second to appreciate how well this video is paced, structured and the use of different kinds of humor to cater to different audiences. GJ

the best way to get out of tutorial hell imo is to find smaller and easier ideas that you want to do and that you think you can do and do them on your own. it also helps to do something like game modding or javascript, something where you dont have to worry about compilation, or making state control, or having to worry about rendering things on your own, etc. it helps massively simplify things so you can get just the basics of working through logic and only logic.

Thank you! I was just asking myself about ”the mindset” yesterday because I feel like I’m missing that

00:58 Man, I didn't keep watching your video when I saw this clip, I literally jumped into this awesome website and started making for my current project It's awesome, and I'll watch the wep dev Cody video as well

stock videos with that leet speech bubbles are precious , make a series out of it !

I needed this. Thank you 🙏🏿

loved your edit man😂

This video deserves way more views. Sharing it with all my friends!

I experienced this (2:40) during University work with data structures and algorithms. We were given large complex sets of data and had to create our own sorting algorithms without using any imported libraries and extremely limited built in libraries. It was seriously tough, but I think it taught us a lot.

Brilliant video! Thanks! Absolutely love your sense of humor haha

Love the video, thanks for creating it

I think you are the best programming channel here in yt. Thanks a lot

I wouldnt necessarily say "fail more" as much as I'd say "break more things" I love using things the wrong way to see how and where it breaks so I have a good understanding of the limitations.

Just started my journey with coding! Great info!

As someone who’s programming for 40 years now. I can say that I don’t know the syntax of most languages that I use. Because I use so many and they mangle in my brain. C and 6502 assembly I know by rote because I did if so much. The rest I just shamelessly lookup. Because I understand the concept of something I need to do and Google is great aid to find that. And learning to write without frameworks in the 80s on bare metal, really teaches you to think in a way most developers don’t anymore. I bet most developers don’t know off the cuff how to turn lowercase into uppercase or vice versa with only bit wise operations. Yet the ascii character set was designed for that! Or print a number to the screen, writing that conversion. Especially if you don’t have a division with remainder instruction.

Thanks, thats nice!🥰

Nice video man. Thanks for the explanation 🔥

Oh. You did give me an idea though regarding the learning aspect of problem solving. Thanks.

IMO the difficulty comes from the size of real-world apps: it's difficult to know where to jump in, or how to isolate only the parts you care about. A little app that you've written from the ground up - easy

Even though 30 minutes seems like a very short block of time, I still think that it is a good amount of time. At least it helps you build consistency, something important when it comes to master a skill.

Loving your videos and editing style. Would love to know about how you edit it, what's your process? Edits, voice-over, stock footage, etc.

I'm dealing with these issues as an average programmer right now, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you for making this video and for making me feel better 💚

been in tutorial hell my whole development journey. I’m suffering.

The hardest thing for me to actually grasp at the moment is focusing too much on trying to get it right. Its like I spend hours on a task, then I hit a wall, can't figure out how to solve the problem I need to solve. I'll hit my head against the wall for hours wondering why I can't figure out such a simple task. Then I go play some games, or go to bed, and the next day, I look at the same code and the solution comes to me, then I might spend another hour or 2 implementing it. I guess I'm saying, its hard to know when to take a break, take a step back, refresh your mind. Maybe watch some RU-vid videos on programming to see if something jumps out at you.

Your videos gives me answers to the questions I have been wondering for too long.. it clears my confusion.. thank u so much ❤❤❤

been there, done that.. my advice, learn and understanding the concept, practice, and learn how to connect the dot.. lastly, never give up

I've been watching prime for years now and I've never gotten the "buy my course and you'll be rich" bullshit from him, He's regularly streamed his content for free and it was very good quality. The message I've taken from prime is that - programming is hard, and you have to work hard - even if your at rock bottom in life you can turn your life around and succeed. - getting a job in fang isn't always nice - don't listen to twitter trends - we're all dumb, so don't overcomplicate things - be kind to people and give them grace Seems a bit unfair to make him the face of the shitty side of programming. especially putting him beside techlead.

First yr of compsci degree. I will say, learning the simple stuff like arrays, loops, if/else, exceptions, objects and classes. Is easy. But applying it to a scenario is wayyyy harder. You can’t just write code. You have to design the system first. Then it gets even worse, with big O, hashing, linked list etc. it feels like you’re just constantly confused and you just learn stuff on the spot.

So close to 100k! Just found this channel and i love it

That was beautiful.. thank you, I've subscribed

This really helped me. And also helped me feel better. Also glad you talk about imposter syndrome and failure because I feel like not many coders and programmers talk about itnat all.

As someone who knows about 8 languages and can pretty much pick up any new language if I want to in a couple of days, I think programming is only hard until you understand the concept. You need to realise program itself is nothing but its a way you're interacting with the operating system which in turn interact with the cpu. So every statement you write, every loop, every function, they all goes back to talk with the machine. Now if you stop learning a language for the sake of learning and instead think how each command you write is interacting with the system, you'll feel a natural flow of logic, the funny thing is that you only need to be good in 1 programming language (preferably any object-oriented language) and every other language is almost same with some syntax difference. There might be some special features in each language but over the time, you understand that most of the language work in similar fashion and some special feature is only introduced to ease up/mess up developer's life. That being said, it's best to learn language with practical projects so you can test and realise what you did wrong or could be written in better ways.

you just lessened my programming practice anxiety by 90% i thought I was doing something wrong since everyone says its easy.

Thanks for your videos. They really help me.

I often Plan, code, delete code, plan again, code, plan, delete some code, plan, plan, delete all, plan code, Repeate until feel happy with code

I am literally sitting at a new job pouring over the database model to try and find out how to implement some functionality to delete some data when some related data gets deleted, but over like 10 joins. Understanding a domain is so much harder than just typing some code. Anyways, time to stop procrastinating and hit my head at the wall of the domain model some more.

This is probably the most accurate video I’ve seen about programming.

Thank you for this, especially that last part

The toxic environment was what threw me off. I know toxicity is in every field, but tech people can be truly built different.

loved this video! thank you

thx for the video

As a scratch engineer, I disagree

Bro i code so slowwww. Whenever i find time and actually focus i end up barely making any progress on a project

Thank you for this, I just finished the Google analyst course like today, and I felt like I barely retained much myself on SQL and R and felt stupid relying on help from good people on the internet that help me point out where I went wrong. But seeing that it’s part of the process gives me more confidence in failing and not to get too bogged down on it. I am a big believer in projects and portfolios as practice and evidencing for potential employers and I have my first project up on kaggle done in R, just wished I knew exactly every single line of code did lol. Next project I’ll focus more on SQL and go through the (e)motions on that.

My experience as a developer is that writing code based on a well defined user story is like finding a golden egg. Majority of a programmer's time will be spent on stuff like: - Making sense of stupid user stories that written like a long business proposal - Screwing around with configurations, access issues, compatibility hiccups - Fixing problems with CI/CD pipelines which are suppose to make life easier except they never fully automated - Digging logs in AWS or Azure and trying to figure out why the last 5 deployment failed - Ending up on a project as a front end angular developer only to find yourselves migrating jenkins pipelines to github actions after your first week

building logic is the basic thing that one should learn first

The key is to never get comfortable, you have to embrace rapid change, complexity, software moves at the speed of electricity and soon it'll move at the speed of light, it's a rapid in a river, you can take a sip, take a swim(if you're bold enough) or stay dry and thirsty, there really is no inbetween here, give it your all chaotically or do nothing.

I'm a Junior Programmer and can code whole Web apps to completion and I still struggle to be a good programmer in the exact sense of this video, this is 100% accurate

Thanks for ACTUALLY speaking to beginners and not just acting like this should all be so easy and intuitive. I first watched a video that was supposedly targeted towards beginners a few months ago when I started trying to learn to program and I was discouraged by how much info the creator sprayed that was completely foreign and unhelpful for me. It made me feel like I shouldn't bother. I wish I had this video available to me at the time - your empathy is commendable and comforting and I appreciate your advice.

isn't brilliant just more tutorial hell ?

Not sure about taking first step is "Solving Problem". Mostly, don't have problems that's the key element - "Generate Problems". You're a developer yet also an a bit analyst and architect because most of the time you know what technologies you are going to use. So how to generate problems and get out of tutorial hell and properly use them? 1. Start from simple idea or copy paste and idea. Let's say I choose to create Service Desk. 2. Analyze the topic to be familiar with, let's say I don't know what is Service Desk and I need to analyze this word - "Service Desk" first. 3. Okay, now I know what Service Desk means and how do I build it? See? Now you have a problem! So now we need to know HOW to build this type of solution. So what you will do next? 1. Analyze familiar Service Desk systems and take out MVP's. 2. Let's say our MVP is: Create login page, Create roles and assign them, reroute authorized users to ether user page or "role" based page, create a ticket, assign ticket, resolve a ticket. See? Now I generated ton of problems! Great! Let's now start from beginning: Let's plan our database design. Unless you don't know what is database or how to design it, bingo! New problem, go and analyze it. Then draw class diagram or create database schema. Great now you have database schema now implement it with Prisma or w/e. One problem gone. Now you need to know what pages will look, how do I do that? Yep, again, new problem, solve it! You will start from framework and drew few screens how it should look and what it should consist of. But wait, firstly I need to create login page and roles right? Yep, sounds logical, do that... See what I did? You're now a problem generator and solver! You ask a question, create a problem, solve it by searching for information how to do it. It's easy to have clear TASK, but not clear GOAL. Most programmers get clear TASK, they do the task and they move on. I'm not sure if you want to focus on that part, because creativity is another motivation generator and solving problems by your own it's the key and learning path you should take. Don't learn what you don't need, learn and execute what you need for your solution. Edit: I stopped video after he mentioned problem solving and moved to project based programming and probably what I wrote is exactly that lmao

Thanks. this like some kind of encouragement for me

Using cooking as an example is an interesting way of comparing them. In one example you replace the sugar with a different sweetener because you know sugar is a sweetener. By that logic it makes it would make sense that if you wanted to replace the title of something without using the data type you would just use a different method for a title. That doesn't seem like problem-solving to me that just seems like using the knowledge that you have through finding alternate ways of doing things you already know. Is it seems similar to Googling what are different sweeteners. Instead it's Googling what are different ways to code a title. I used voice to speech and I'm also a beginner and I'm pretty sure isn't a data type

I was also hard yesterday 🥺

I Really liked the video. As a career programmer, I find I deal more with people than I do with actual coding, perhaps to the detriment of my own coding skills.

This is the video i was searching for ❤

THANKS

The planning stage cannot be overstated. Make a block diagram of everything your program needs to do then go about building it. Also keep your mind open to possible "better ways" to do things.

Thank you!

Great video! A lot of great analogies. Definitely that tip 1 is solid, the best programmers are masters of complexity management. The only way i know to get better at that is to keep trying

This video is like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

This is exactly what I'm going through right now. I was given an already built project that I have to dissect. It's like learning an engine and it's parts

I can you tell as a programmer that I learned breaking things down in school. Not from teachers just on my own. Before I got a degree in software development I was a physics major. That's when I learned to break things down. I realized quickly that applying that technique to programming was a good idea.

This is the single most useful programming video I have ever come across.

And the further you go in your career, the more important soft skills become. At a big company you need to coordinate with many different people from different teams all with different deadlines, goals and pressures than you.

I agree, problem solving and writing codes are different.

Pretty sure I watched this video a month ago but didn't realize until two minutes in and I'm just watching it again because its very cathartic

Yes I get that. Lately I've been getting better at solving coding problems. After 4 yrs of playing around in python. Got to make some bigger projects. The stock scanner I made this time solved the problem of finding stocks at the right time.

the best anology here is with filmmaking. its not the technical and the 3 act story structure, because that's easy to learn. what hard is what kind of story are you going to tell? what of movie are you going to make? who is your target audience. a lot of filmmaking students fail to make movies because they focus on the wrong thing. what matters is creativity, problem solving, starting something from "scratch". good video :)