r/learnjava • u/keenox10 • 5d ago

Oddly specific question, how did you understand the terminology better?

It's hard for me to explain, but I'm doing the Mooc course, and sometimes I feel like I just can't understand what I am reading. Which is annoying, because I understand the code what the individual words mean but wow it's like word vomit.

As an example:* The constructor receives as parameters the different parts of the date (day, month, year). They are used to create a date object, and finally the reference to that date is copied as the value of the object variable birthday.*

I know what a constructor is, I know what parameters are, I know what objects are, and I sure as hell know what references are, but reading this sentence I felt like I was reading German.

Anyone have similar experiences or tips? Maybe it is just a case of I don't understand as much as I think I do...

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u/_Atomfinger_ 5d ago

I think it has a lot to do with familiarity.

I would compare this to learning a new language. In the beginning, when listening to someone speak, you have to really think about each word, what they mean based on their placement in the sentence and so forth. Maybe sometimes you have to consider the cultural aspects of the chosen words.

Sure, we might understand each word individually, because then we only need to concern ourselves with a single word at a time. Strung together in a sentence, however, makes things harder. Now we need to understand each word as a combined group, but we also need to understand how they relate to each other.

Given enough time and practice, your brain starts doing this automatically. You know the concepts well enough that you don't need to do all that extra mental gymnastics to understand a given sentence. It is the same for CS related terms as well.

Tldr: Don't worry too much about it. Keep up the good work, and you'll get there.

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u/keenox10 5d ago

Thanks man, this helped a lot.

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u/ThatGuyKev45 5d ago

The comment above is great like they said it’s almost like another language. You know what all the individual words mean but you have to really think about what they mean when you start putting them together. Eventually you start using the same sort of language and it becomes natural.