I’ve come to realize that learning new programming concepts is about building an intuition for those concepts, making them part of your mental toolkit. The goal is to develop a mental model that lets you understand how certain features work without constantly referring to documentation. There are countless details within any API, including parameters and configurations. Without intuition, these details can feel overwhelming, even daunting, rather than illuminating.
The only way to build this intuition is through rapid trial and error. I start with a naive understanding, write code based on my incomplete ideas, get immediate feedback, and adjust my understanding until it aligns with how things actually work. This process is essentially about aligning your mental model with reality. Depending on how far your initial model diverges from the actual behavior, this could take hours or even days. That’s why someone proficient in one language can often pick up another language quickly — especially if it’s similar in paradigm — since their existing intuition fills in many gaps. The rest is just language-specific details, and while it takes time to think natively in a new language, a strong foundation makes the process faster.
I firmly believe the language itself matters because it shapes your thought process. This is why learning multiple languages is valuable — it allows you to approach problems from different perspectives.
Reading books cover-to-cover certainly helps, but the essential step of aligning your mental model only happens when you start building with the technology. Books are inherently descriptive; by only reading them, you’re just taking in information. Without the crucial step of creating and testing outputs, you miss the chance to check whether your understanding holds up.