• 0

Trying to learn Java but failed miserably in all attempts


Question

Hello,

 

I have started to learn Java about 1 year ago (I gave up... well... I rage quit after a ~6 months and wanted to get back to it almost instantly but my brain kept saying "nope").

In theory I can write some very basic things, also in theory I know what are the fields, classes, constructors, I know the data types, I can write tests, I even know some Spring  annotations and I think I understand them(!).

 

But in practice and in reality I never truly understood anything beyond hello world (strangely if you would show me some advanced code and say "finish it by adding Spring annotations" I will probably succed in doing it). I'm not able to write anything on my own as in reality I do not understand a thing. I tried to read the books and follow them in "practice mode", I tried some video tutorials for a very begginers, yet when it comes for me to write anything beyond hello world I change into mindless zombie. More about video tutorials - when I follow them everything seems to be cool and I feel the power, but as soon as I finish it and try to excersise on my own, my head is empty. I'm getting very frustrated about all of this as I'v always been a quick learner (I have an IQ of 136) and here I can't get a simple things.

 

 

 

  Quote

for(int i=0; i<10; i++)

Expand  

This for example. I know it is a part of the loop. And I know(?) it is some condition(?) for "for" statement. But thats it. I really don't know how the loop works, even though I wrote a lot of them when I followed the tutorials. Especially the "i++" part irritates me the most as always when I see it I'm like "what the hell is that i++, what is it doing, what does it means??".

 

Well, I simply can't understand the basics (the loop case is just one of the many) and no book, no video tutorial, and no practice helped me. I would really like to learn Java, and the most importantly I would like to understand at least the basics, especially since I have invested soo much time in it.

 

Could someone advise me how to learn all those things? Or how to understand them? (I tried to google my questions many times before but didn't find an answer) I would be really and eternally grateful.

 

Thank you in advance :)

Edited by SoapDish

5 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0

Consider for a moment how you end a line of code - with a semi colon (;) so what you have is essentially three little lines of code.

 

int i = 0;

i<10;

i++

 

You also know its a loop because of the for syntax so... you are creating a little integer that is your loop counter (int i) and setting it to 0.

Then you are saying while i < 10 meaning if i is less than 10 keep looping.

Finally i++. This means increment i by 1 ( i = i+1 ).

 

Does that help?

 

  • 0

It's never the goal to understand every detail of all code, it's more important to understand the architecture.

 

Following tutorials is a great way to learn how to make a calculator when it's a tutorial about making a calculator but it's not that easy to use the same tutorial to make a sudoku solver as example.

 

So how do we learn to realize ideas into actual code?

 

Divide it, then divide it again, and again and again till the steps are so easy that it's no longer an issue to realize those steps.

 

  1. Write your idea down.
    • e.g. Sudoku solver
  2. Think about the global steps needed.
    • Values input
    • Calculate solution
    • Show solution
  3. Divide those global steps in logical smaller steps and realise them, if needed look for solutions online.
    • Create a GUI with 9 input boxes
    • Get input values from GUI on button click
    • Look at algorithms for solving sudokus
    • Pick an algorithm
    • Realize this algorithm by dividing all logical steps and looking up the required code to realise each step and combining all the code.
    • Show the calculated values in the GUI by filling the empty input boxes.
  4. Put everything together and you've made a sudoku solver :)

 

So why is dividing problems into small steps so important?

 

When you google "how to make a sudoku solver" you will not get any actual answer or just another tutorial. 

But when you google "how to store values from a sudoku?" and "how to loop through a 2 dimensional array" you get actual specific answers with code that is explained and makes sense since it's just a few lines of code instead of a whole program.

 

That's great but what about more complex programs?

 

Thereare multiple programming paradigms that fit different scenarios. A very common paradigm is OOP which stands for Object Oriented Programming, this makes it easier to work with data and logic by defining objects like a Car that has a color and a numberplate and can drive() but also brake().

 

What to do when I don't know how to program my logic in Java, C#, Python etc?

 

As I said before: Write down and divide!

Write your logic down using psuedo code as example, this is code you can make up yourself, if you don't know how to do a certain step in logic just write down a sentence describing what should be done by the computer. Then divide this psuedo code in small steps and look each step up, in most cases the solution is found quickly if not you can always post questions on this forum or sites like Stackoverflow.

 

Making diagrams also helps in the progress, illustrate your logical thinking steps and the data used in the application using logic flow diagrams and entity relationship diagrams.

 

Finding clear and educating answers for very specific questions is hard, divide it and look for the answers for smaller questions instead.

 

Programming is like a journey, it's a matter of dividing the problem is smaller and smaller steps and solving those steps like a puzzle.

 

 

TL;DR

I type too much when I'm stuck in a train.

  • Like 2
  • 0

Sounds like someone tried to teach you programming by starting with classes and unit tests rather than basic control flow statements. I saw that before and it was a Java class indeed.

 

Try to find a course that does the opposite? You could even just use a more beginner-friendly language like Python; tutorials tend to be proceed more logically. It's highly popular in teaching institutions. https://www.python.org/

 

You can start coding right away without installing anything here: https://repl.it/languages/python

  • Like 2
  • 0

Something to keep in mind is that programming computers is NOT for everyone despite the attempts by various organizations to encourage everyone to do it such as "Hour of Code"

 

You can train a brain to do almost anything, but for most people, most things feel like lifting a weight up the hill and when they find their "thing" it becomes a welcome downhill relief. Programming may simply not be your "thing"

 

That being said most online education is terrible and most university education competes for the same "terrible" award. So if you feel it is something you really want to do then find a teaching style that matches your own learning style. From your example, you seem like you might be a "hands on" type of learner and would benefit greatly from some sort of Raspberry Pi type kit that turns lights on and off by using basic Machine Language (Assembly Programming) so that you can get a feel for exactly what the CPU is doing before you move up to all of the crazy Abstractions and Metaphors that "simplify" programming.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • 1. DRM is the worst plague, I like my games clean. 2. Third party launchers are an overhead and annoyance.
    • Amazon lays off more staff across Goodreads and Kindle divisions by Hamid Ganji Dozens of Amazon employees working on the retailer's book divisions have been laid off. As reported by Reuters, Amazon confirmed that it's cutting jobs across the Goodreads review site and Kindle units, which impacts fewer than 100 workers. Amazon says the recent layoffs across Goodreads and Kindle divisions are meant to improve efficiency and streamline operations. The giant retailer has constantly reduced staff across various divisions over the past few years. According to CEO Andy Jassy, reducing headcounts helps the company to eliminate bureaucracy. "As part of our ongoing work to make our teams and programs operate more efficiently and to better align with our business roadmap, we've made the difficult decision to eliminate a small number of roles within the Books organization," an Amazon spokesperson said. Layoffs recently impacted employees in Amazon's Wondery podcast division, devices and services units, communications, and in-store staff. However, Amazon's Q1 results show the retailer has added about 4,000 jobs compared to Q4 2024. After the Covid pandemic settled down, many companies began laying off thousands of staff they hired during the pandemic to respond to growing demands. The layoff trend among tech firms still exists today, and AI has amplified it. The latest data shows that in 2025, about 62,832 tech employees were laid off across 141 tech companies. Also, 152,922 tech employees across 551 companies were laid off in 2024. More layoffs are expected to occur due to declining economic growth, tariffs, and the expansion of AI across companies. Amazon is also gearing up to double down in AI investments and robotics. The company has recently announced the forming of a new agentic AI team to develop an agentic AI framework for use in robotics. Also, a new report by The Information indicates that Amazon has begun testing humanoid robots for package delivery.
    • Major Privacy 0.98.1.1 Beta by Razvan Serea MajorPrivacy is a cutting-edge privacy and security tool for Windows, offering unparalleled control over process behavior, file access, and network communication. It is a continuation of the PrivateWin10 project. By leveraging advanced kernel-level protections, MajorPrivacy creates a secure environment where user data and system integrity are fully safeguarded. Unlike traditional tools, MajorPrivacy introduces innovative protection methods that ensure mounted encrypted volumes are only accessible by authorized applications, making it the first and only encryption solution of its kind. MajorPrivacy – Ultimate Privacy & Security for Windows key features Process Protection – Isolate processes to block interference from unauthorized apps, even with admin privileges. Software Restriction – Block unwanted apps and DLLs to ensure only trusted software runs. Revolutionary Encrypted Volumes Secure Storage – Create encrypted disk images for sensitive data. Exclusive Access – Unlike traditional tools, only authorized apps can access mounted volumes—blocking all unauthorized processes. File & Folder Protection – Lock down sensitive files and prevent unauthorized access or modifications. Advanced Network Firewall – Control which apps can send or receive data online. DNS Monitoring & Filtering – Track domain access and block unwanted sites (Pi-hole compatible filtering coming soon). Tweak Engine – Disable telemetry, cloud integration, and invasive Windows features for better privacy. Why MajorPrivacy? Kernel-Level Security – Protects at the deepest system level. Unmatched Encryption Protection – Keeps mounted volumes safe from all unauthorized access. Full System Control – Block, isolate, or restrict processes as needed. Enhanced Privacy – Stops Windows & apps from collecting unnecessary data. Perfect for privacy-conscious users, IT pros, and anyone who wants total system control. Major Privacy 0.98.1.1 Beta changelog: The 0.98.1 release of MajorPrivacy introduces significant enhancements and a number of critical fixes aimed at improving usability, localization, and system integration. A major new feature is the introduction of full translation support, allowing the application interface and tweaks to be localized into multiple languages. Initial translations include AI-assisted German and Polish versions, a community-contributed Turkish translation, and Simplified Chinese. Users interested in contributing translations or adding new languages are encouraged to participate via the forum. This version also improves compatibility and deployment by bundling the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable with the installer, which is required for the ImDisk user interface. Several important bugs have been resolved. The installer now correctly removes the driver during uninstallation. Tweak definitions have been cleaned up for better consistency. A number of networking issues were addressed, including failures related to network shares and incorrect handling of mapped drive letters. It is now required to use full UNC paths for defining rules involving shared resources. Additionally, configuration persistence issues on system shutdown have been fixed, as well as problems affecting protected folder visibility and rule precedence involving enclave conditions. Finally, the underlying driver code has been refactored, laying the groundwork for better maintainability and future enhancements. MajorPrivacy-v0.98.1.1.exe (0.98.1a) hotfix for #71 Download: Major Privacy 0.98.1.1 Beta | 47.4 MB (Open Source) View: MajorPrivacy Home Page | Github Project page | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      Uranus_enjoyer earned a badge
      First Post
    • Week One Done
      Uranus_enjoyer earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      jfam earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • First Post
      survivor303 earned a badge
      First Post
    • Week One Done
      CHUNWEI earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      430
    2. 2
      +FloatingFatMan
      239
    3. 3
      snowy owl
      212
    4. 4
      ATLien_0
      211
    5. 5
      Xenon
      157
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!