I am learing C# but I learning really slowly..

Hello,
I have been learning C# for a while now and... When I read the book it doesnt seem that hard and I enjoy it but after that.. I feel scared and just a general not wanting to do it mood.. Are there any Developers out there what can give me advice.. I am 17 at the moment and started studying it last year, I know more then the basics I think.. I kinda of enjoy it when I am doing it but I just I dont know.. I feel dumb and kind of pi&*@d at my self that I cannot just keep studying C# every 2 or 3 days.. I do it like every week or so.. Maybe I am just a slow learner.. I dont know..
Thanks in advanced!

Moved from General Chat to a more appropriate forum by Roger

Perseverance!

I totally understand where you are coming from. Some days I'd rather not look at my compiler and I just dont want to turn on my brain. Don't worry about speed, especially if this is your first language. If you are just getting into program development their are some concepts that seem obscure and don't make sense but in time you will understand why they are what they are.

My biggest rule when learning how to program is don't focus too much on learning by reading. Learn by doing! Sure, if your just getting error after error and the compilers are just giving you some cryptic error message that doesn't really make sense and you don't have a clue, that is when you crack open the book. Read the concept maybe once or twice, take some key notes and then challenge your self. If your learning loops, write a program that counts to 10 with a loop. You can read all day about the difference between a for..next loop and a do...while loop but if you can watch the code execute step after step you might understand whats going on better.


Don't be so hard on yourself! Learning programming is FAR from a cake walk, it takes time. Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a field. Say your working a full time job programming 40 hours a week, thats still 5 years! Perhaps your not going to expert level but understand that these things take time.


Set goals. Say you want to get through 3 or 4 chapters in a month. Structure it like a class. Quiz yourself, assign "homework" to get some practice in the code. And take notes! Before you know it 6 months later your at the end of the book and you will have this large stack of notes and homework programs and tests etc. that you can go back through at anytime to reference those concepts again.

Great advice from xxAlphaxx
You can also check out some C# related forums, sites and chat rooms to get you motivated. Hang out with like minded people who have similar goals as you.

My advice if you're finding motivation is the missing resource is to pursue a project based learning system. If you are trying to make something that needs a concept you're trying to learn, you'll find it much easier to motivate yourself to learn it.

When I wanted to learn how to manipulate text, my challenge was to make a simple Caesar's Shift cypher program.
'' how to read and write files, I challenged myself to make a quiz with a high score table.
'' how to manipulate graphics, I challenged myself to make a game with simple graphics.
And so on.
Next I want to improve my grasp of databases. I do understand the theory and I will read around it some more, but most important will be actually making a useful program that relies on a database.

This approach just helps you to see the relevance to what you're learning, instead of "Arrays are complex data structures comprised of...", and of course leaves you with something you can be proud of once it's done.

Just keep at it, if you give up now then you'll never learn it. The assumption your making here subconsciously is that it was easy for everybody else to learn, and that you just might not be smart enough to get it. Not true. Perseverance as alpha said, and if you keep at it, you'll eventually learn it. You can't completely learn programming, understand that you'll ALWAYS be learning something new, no matter how many years of experience you have, unless you don't feel like learning any more, but that's a mistake to be made

~Ace

I started learning Java programming about 1 year ago, and I felt a lot of times that I wasn't going fast enough, but figured that it was all normal. I'm pretty busy and work on practice projects a few times/week and it works good. Don't despair, you can do it

Sophia..ummm...what?

Anyway, I always try to tackle learning too many things at once. In doing so, I've found some great resources. For learning C# (or any other programming language), look up thenewboston on YouTube.

They offer solid tutorials that start right at installing VB#.

My advice is to pace yourself. You will burn out if you try to do it for hours a day without breaks. If you are stumped on a particular concept, go do something else. Research shows that you continue to subconsciously think about it, and something seemingly innocuous can make it all click. Good luck, happy coding