Module 12 - Final Thoughts
00 - What To Do Next
Where should you go from here? If you’re new to programming, you may be feeling a bit unsure about how to put all these different code bits together, exactly. Where to even start? What’s the best approach for writing certain things?
The best advice I can give you is to go out and write code. Write lots of it. Writing in the language you want to learn is the single best way to get you to really absorb what you’ve learned here. Remember that the heart of programming is problem solving, so think of a problem to solve, and get on it. Why not try building a simple calculator to get you started? How are you going to make it take user inputs? How are you going to have it do operations with those inputs? Doing exercises like that is great because it gets you to really think about how you can use the syntax you’ve read about.
Do keep this guide handy and reference back to it as you need! As you write more code, you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes! God knows the first things I coded were horrific, but if I had never made them, I wouldn’t be here writing this guide, now.
I’d also recommend you go back and reread the code examples in the “Further Context” sections! If much of the code in those examples was over your head at the time, you may be surprised by how much of it you recognize/understand now!
The other thing you can do is look at other people’s code. If you’re in the Ukagaka Dream Team Discord server, the #free_code_snippets channel is a great place to start. You could also try the minigames and functions on my website. Or, you might try looking at some ghosts that have cool functions, and peek inside to see what’s going on.
What I recommend is, find a function that looks interesting to you, and start reading through it. Try to break it down and understand what it’s doing and why. And as you do, leave comments for yourself! This can help if you get confused as you go along and need to backtrack.
Once you’ve gone through the whole function and you have a grasp on what it’s doing, try writing that down your own words. You don’t have to share this with anyone, you just have to write it. Forcing your brain to make coherent words instead of wispy brain vibes can help it all to stick. (Writing this very guide made a lot of concepts that were fuzzy for me stick a lot better!)
From there, if you want to take it a step further; try recreating the function yourself, without looking back at it unless you absolutely need to for reference. You can write it in whatever style you want, or even use a different approach completely, just try to accomplish the same goal as the original function.
And if that’s not the way you learn, that’s fine! I can’t give advice beyond what helps for me, but you might be able to find some general coding advice online. You might be surprised how much other coding stuff you can get the gist of now!