I have been taking android development tutorials for the last month for 1 - 4 hours a day. In that time I learned one thing, Android development is hard. Really hard… None of it is intuitive to me. The Java language hurts my brain.

There, I said it. I feel better. I was ashamed of this fact. I would often ask myself if these tutorials are helping. I would drag myself to the coffee shops knowing that I would struggle to focus on the next lesson.

However, I learned that I am getting better at android development. The more I realize I don’t know, the more I learn. For example, I don’t know how intents works, or activities, or adapters are supposed to work. Not sure how to correctly implement recycler view or when I should override built in functions.

I remember reading a blog post that discussed how to learn a programming language. Their advice was to take as many tutorials as possible even if you have to copy and paste. I didn’t understand how that was helpful. I thought copy and pasting code woulnd’t help me learn, however, I found myself doing it quite often.

I realized that in the act of “Faking it”, you learn a lot that is hard to describe. It is a familiarity, a muscle memory, a confidence. You get the sense of the depth of the work and some of the complexities. That in itself has value. It helps build a framework for thinking through that language.

I find that I copy and paste when I am grinding on and need to take a break. I just need to get to the other end of the tunnel so I can look back and figure out what I did right and wrong. That way, If I go down the same tunnel, I know where I am weakest.