Retention of the course content

[SamuelOsewa]

How do you guys retain the knowledge in the content as it feels like I'm just typing along but I don't fully understand what is going on?

[vivart]

I am using notion to make notes and if some topic is confusing like memory, calldata I search on google and try to get some more information.

[cymatic9]

Everyone's learning style is different. For me, I don't pressure myself to retain everything. I will tell you this...I've been learning Solidity and blockchain development for about a month, and things that I couldn't retain a few weeks ago are really starting to click and stick with me during Patrick's course. But that's because I've been seeing the terminology and hearing the explanations over and over (on different sites and materials) for the past month. I think that's a common thing with all of us...the brain just starts to latch onto things with repetition.

The other thing that is really important for things to stick with me is to do the work on my own and not just copy what is happening in the tutorial. So...after following what Patrick is doing in each lesson, it's really important for me to go back and attempt the same things, but with my own code and examples. In other words, to go beyond simply copying what Patrick is doing and to force my brain to write my own code. This forces me to think critically and prove that I know (or don't know) what I've learned. There's something really powerful about making stuff stick when you have to wrestle with creatively doing it yourself (without copying someone else).

[TilakMaddy]

Honestly dude it comes to programming focus on understanding the concepts and not retention. You may spend a lot of time in the beginning referring to docs/pat's repos but as you build more of ya own stuff that need to constantly look up would drastically reduce. Happened to me with React JS ....you see now I barely look at the docs.

Piggybacking off of my first point, I'd also dare make a claim that focussing on retention will have a NEGATIVE effect on you because that's the job of your fingers not your brain. So when you overload your brain with something it not supposed to do..happens is the actual concepts take a second place in the cellular memory hierarchy. (becoz the easiest thing to do always takes first place ..humans are lazy...so our brain thinks learning the syntax is more imp. than the concepts.)

You don't control your brain, your brain will control you. Period !

It comes to programming challenges , be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves

[TilakMaddy]

credits: Bruce Lee

[gmluqa]

This is a great point tbh

[PatrickAlphaC]

Take notes (make comments) in all your code samples, and save everything so you can refer back to it later!

Always try tinkering and exploring stuff. If something doesn't make sense, play with it till it does! Maybe try working on a project using the knowledge you've learnt!

As many have said, everyone learns at their own page. If you don't understand what's going on... Tinker with it till you do!

A lof of users here like @TilakMaddy, @vivart, and @cymatic9 gave really awesome answers!!

[amanbthakkar]

I feel that this is a space where you constantly feel left behind and want to do stuff really quick. It is impossible to have retention if you're doing too much at a time.

I've set a target of doing only 30 min a day from when the coding part starts even though I've done a bit of the python course. Even if you skip a few days, you can finish this video in 3 months. Seems a long time, but is really not. Once you don't set a limit for yourself, you can explore - which is the best teacher.

[PatrickAlphaC]

This this this this this!!!