Spent 3 months fighting with Python tutorials before trying JavaScript on a whim

I was so convinced Python was the only way to start coding. Every beginner guide online says start with Python. After 3 months I couldn't even build a simple calculator without getting errors. A buddy told me to try JavaScript for a weekend project. I built a basic quiz game in 2 hours and it clicked for me. Turns out different languages just click for different people. Has anyone else found a language that just made sense when Python didn't?

2 comments

2 Comments

william_garcia9d ago

Stop blaming the language and start looking at how you learn. Python is literally designed to be the most readable, beginner friendly language out there. If you spent 3 months on it and couldn't make a calculator, that's not Python's fault. That's you not putting in the real work or maybe skipping the basics to jump straight into building stuff without understanding loops and conditionals first. JavaScript lets you fake it because you can copy paste code from Stack Overflow and get something running fast, but you won't actually know what's happening under the hood. You just got lucky that a quiz game was simple enough to stumble through. People who switch from Python to JavaScript usually end up writing messy code because they never learned proper structure. Stick with Python longer, slow down, and actually do the boring exercises. That's how real understanding happens, not chasing quick wins.

margareto269d ago

Hold on, three months and no calculator? That's wild to me! I mean, I get that everyone learns at their own pace, but a calculator is like the second project you do after "hello world." You just need a while loop and some if statements, plus and minus, that's it. That's not even getting into functions or classes yet. It sounds like they tried to build a web app with Django on week one without knowing what a variable is. And you're right, JavaScript lets you get away with that for a bit because the browser gives you instant feedback, but that doesn't teach you how to think like a programmer. Python forces you to actually understand the logic or your code just crashes with a traceback, which is honestly better for learning.