I thought learning C first was just gatekeeping... until I tried it myself

For months, everyone in my study group said to start with Python because it's easier. I finally tried a C course on Codecademy last month, and honestly, the struggle made things click. Having to think about memory and types from day one forced me to understand what the computer is actually doing. It took me three tries to get a simple program right, but now Python feels way less mysterious. Has anyone else found that starting with a 'harder' language actually helped them later?

3 comments

3 Comments

dakota_nelson4315d ago

Yeah, that makes sense. What was the specific moment in the C course where it clicked for you? Like, was it dealing with pointers, or just seeing how a basic loop actually uses memory?

oliver215d ago

It was week three, the lecture on stack frames. The professor drew a simple diagram of memory during a function call, showing local variables as boxes that get pushed and popped. Seeing how a for loop's counter variable actually lives on the stack, and gets cleared when the function ends, made the whole "memory as a space" thing real. That diagram is still burned in my brain.

ruby4507d ago

Remember seeing that diagram too. It finally showed me where my variables actually go when the code runs. That picture made abstract memory feel like a real place you could map out.