how do you remember codes

Question

hey I just got started learning HTML, CSS and Php. I was just wondering how do coders remember so many functions and etc. Do you pick it up over time? Im a beginner therefore i was just wondering. And should i do lots of projects to pick it up?

This is very much based on opinion and personal experience and therefore isn't really relevant to this site, which is for actual programming issues with real code. To answer your question though, most people do just pick it up with experience, but even the most experienced coders will still have to look back on the documentation sometimes — Ben Kolya Mansley, Jan 27 '18 at 19:38
We either use our brain, or documentation, or both. Try to learn the core of the language you are using, in order to be able to do useful things with it, then start doing what you need to do, and keep learning as you go. Make some research before making important decisions. Do use the docs when you need, nobody remembers thousands of functions from today's large libraries. But you should know well at least your main working language(s). Of course you will improve with practice. Good luck! — progmatico, Jan 27 '18 at 19:52
You learn it. One thing I find hard and have to look up every now and then is the order of parameters to functions. PHP is a good language but when it comes to this, it's horrible in my opinion. Sometimes subject is first sometimes not. For example substr(string, pos, lenght) vs str_replace(find, replace, string) why is not string/subject always first? A good tip is also to try and answer questions here on SO, that means you work with the functions in ways that you may not use them in your projects but you will learn lots from it. Especially remembering them. — Andreas, Jan 27 '18 at 20:38
too bad such questions/answer got upvoted ... now we encourage people to transform this website into a discussion forum ... — Temani Afif, Jan 27 '18 at 21:42

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 27 '18 at 20:00

Just like a baby learning to speak a language. There are so many words, its just overwhelming. The baby slowly builds his vocabulary until he has a good work set of words. Probably <5% (or even <1%) are all you need day to day. Anything else, you look up in a dictionary.

With web dev, it is the same. There are so many things to learn, its just overwhelming. Dive in like a baby! Don't get scared away and not start. You will slowly build a working set of knowledge, probably only needing <5% (or <1%) of all the functions, tags, directives, etc, etc that exist. Anything else, you look up in the documentation. To become a truly "literate" programmer, you should continually look at documentation to add to your mastery and find better way to solve problems.

EDIT: I just read your profile, you nailed it with "I am gradually learning and evolving into a better coder day by day".

I totally agree with what you said. Sometimes I am overwhelmed as there is so much to learn. Sometimes I find myself going too far ahead.. gotta build a strong foundation. Cheers BareNakedCoer ! — Samuel Hibbard, Jan 27 '18 at 20:52
We are all babies till we die. Now I hardly remember the answers I write here. But the motive is that I understand my answers after I go through it again. — m4n0, Feb 08 '19 at 10:42

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 27 '18 at 20:22

Well as on one of the comments: this is based on personal experience and opinion, but I will answer anyway for your benefit.

If you are learning HTML, CSS and PHP then I would advise not learning them all at once! Learn HTML, then when you are ready move on to CSS and build a basic web page and use websites like Quora to get people’s opinions, use the feed back to improve yourself then that is them two mostly done with. For PHP I would advise you learn python before you even think about PHP, the reason for this is because PHP is a scripting language and so is python, the main difference is that python is a purpose built teaching language to teach beginners to program and use scripting languages. After that learn the syntax and basics like variables, functions, strings, don’t forget the semi colon at the end of each line!, and then things like $_POST and $_SESSION values and MySQL functions and SQL. Then do the same as what you did with HTML and CSS: post it on Quora, get opinions, and use it to improve yourself.

That’s the story of learning it but you can never learn it all so it’s natural to look back at what you have learnt and revisit the basics, never feel ashamed to do so or feel like your falling behind, everyone does sometimes.

There is no simple way to do so, no one remembers it all, so remember the basics, and over time you will learn more but always look back and check!

I hope this helped, thank you for your time :)

Thank you so much for your help! Great idea about getting opinions on Quora and working on the feedback I get, I'll look into that. Makes sense now to learn Python first thank you — Samuel Hibbard, Jan 27 '18 at 20:42

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 27 '18 at 20:34

You should concentrate on understanding the concepts such as the structure of tags in HTML and passing parameters to and returning result from PHP function and from time to time read php manual site and getting involved in sites such as here will make it less boring to refresh and learn new stuff.

how do you remember codes

3 Answers3