this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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Programming

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I've always flunked at math; and knowing how intertwined programming is with math, I'm skeptical of my ability to learn how to code. Can someone be too dumb to learn programming? If it helps, I'm mostly interested in learning Common Lisp.

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[–] WalrusByte@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

You need to pick a project to start out so you have a goal, then from there it's just google searches for each individual part.

I started learning in High School because I wanted to create a game. I had learned a little bit of Java from a book my dad gave me, but I was kind of in the same spot as you at first where I didn't know how to do anything other than follow along with the book.

But once I sat down with my goal to make a game, and just started Googling stuff, that's when it started to click.

Python has easy syntax, so that might be a good place to start. You could google: "Python game library" and it would pull up something like PyGame. Then you could look up "Pygame tutorial" which would give you a baseline on how to set up a window, etc. If you have a hard time with Python fundementals, you could just google "python for loop" or "python functions".

That's pretty much what my learning process looked like: start with a goal, google how to get started, google each problem as it comes up. I still follow that same process to this day, and I have a CS degree now.

At the end of the day, it's a skill just like anything else. Just takes practice. I don't think anyone is too dumb to learn it, but it depends on how much you want it. If it's not worth the effort for you then you probably never will.