
Ask HN: Did you ever help your SO learn to code? How did you avoid frustration? - adetrest
I am helping my SO learn how to code (JS).<p>She has started and stopped countless tutorials. She has taken part into a mini bootcamp to learn React but we both agree that it was mismatched to her abilities because it assumed more knowledge than she had.<p>After over a year, she still doesn&#x27;t have the basics: there is confusion as to what is an object, the difference between a value and a function, how to access an object&#x27;s values vs an array&#x27;s, etc.<p>I am trying to help her with code exercises or interview questions when it includes a coding component but it feels like we&#x27;re going nowhere: We spent hundreds of hours over time on these and because she doesn&#x27;t have the basics down, she runs into the same issues over and over and over again.<p>I get frustrated and tend to be more curt than I&#x27;d like, this also makes her frustrated and hinders enthusiasm + progress.<p>Did you ever help your SO learn how to code? How did you go about it? How did you avoid the frustration and tension?
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wrestlerman
I am not familiar with your situation, so the following questions you should
ask her/yourself are:

1\. Does she really want to learn to code, or does it come from you? 2\. Can
she write any code? Does she have trouble with just defenitions or coding in
general? 3\. Maybe JS isn't for her? Maybe show her Python or another
language? What I mean is that maybe syntax is a bit confusing to her. 4\. Has
she tried any books? How does she learn other stuff most efficient? 5\. Maybe
just let her code and search for problems on the Web? Maybe you are trying to
teach her too much stuff at once.

IMO give her more space and help only in the most critical errors at the
moment. Let her code, code, and code. You could help her by creating some
snippets or cheatsheet that she could print and use next to a keyboard.

When I was first learning Java (at college) I had trouble with understanding a
lot of concepts and it took me a long time to finally grasp them. Don't think
about that clickbait articles that are all over the internet about people that
have learned to code in a few months. They are just clickbait articles, that's
all they are. Learning to code is not easy, it takes time, for some a lot of
time. If it was easy, a lot more people would be programmers and that's not
the case.

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yorwba
Maybe this talk helps:
[https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9800-how_to_teach_programming_to...](https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9800-how_to_teach_programming_to_your_loved_ones)

Disclaimer: I haven't had the time to watch it myself yet.

