Help! Self taught programmer- What are your methods?

If you aren't already doing so, you need to actually write software for small, "play" projects. I can't tell from your post, but if you are only learning from books, and not actually doing, you are not going to learn, remember, and understand very much.

Can you tell us what have you already learned and what information is not getting in your head.

How to Remember the Code You’re Learning

It’s Easy to Forget What You Don’t Understand
Often, even when you think you have a good grasp of HTML, CSS, or JavaScript concepts and techniques, they’re difficult to put it into practice. And sometimes, no matter how clear the explanations in the videos or tutorials, you can’t get anything to work when you try it later on.

Don’t Just Watch or Read
Be an active learner, not a passive learner. It’s difficult to retain information through passive learning. You may think that watching a video or reading a tutorial over and over again is enough to lodge the information in your head forever. While some of it will eventually stick, it’s not the most effective way to learn.

Even though you’re focused on what’s being taught in the lesson, you’re just seeing or reading abstract concepts. To really get it, you need to run into difficulty, make mistakes, then identify and correct them. So converting that knowledge from abstract to practical is important because it’s no longer something someone else has told you.

Be Patient, Confident and Don’t Worry About Memorizing
It’s important to be patient because it takes a while to wrap your head around code, but the more you do it, the more it starts clicking.

Don’t worry about memorizing every tag, selector, property or value available. A solid understanding of the concepts –– and a reliable reference –– is more important. I probably don’t know every CSS selector off the top of my head, but I sure know how they work and where to reference them.

I am somewhat self taught even though I studied CS in college. Just like anything else, you will come across topics you do not understand your first time around. You may not even understand it the second or even third time around. But, keep at it. During every iteration something may make a bit more sense than last. Eventually, it will just click even though it sounds like a cliche. If you are learning about a topic, try to redo the sample code without looking at it and try to figure out what its doing. Once you understand apply to some real world program you are trying to build. Hope this helps.

Hi Berkxz,

a good programmer has gone through trial and error a few years...

I was a software engineer 5 years long and you only learn programming through programming. Just program anything... If you dont undestand a particular topic like static methods in Java... Try to make a own programm where you focus just on this topic.

Building your classes... creating a few static methods and see how it works and then WHY it works...

Programming is not for everyone in my opinion and many people fail hardly because of the fact they are overwhelmed by the information they have to learn...

I like your intention creating something useful for the crowd

BUT

Software Development is nowadays a really BIG area. A good software has so many components. e.g.: if it's a web application for sharing a few photos: You have to know about things like HTML (for the backbone), CSS (for styles) maybe bootstrap because of the design standard people like to see nowadays. For logic things: JavaScript or PHP or ASP.NET or both... For saving data you should know things about Databases and Client Server connections as well as Web standards like SOAP and so on...

I don't like to demotivate you now, but wanna open your eyes that it is a BIG FISH nowadays and you have to learn day in and day out because the standards will change every weeks/months...

Hope I could help you out a little bit.

Best regards,
PHR