This tracks pretty well with my experiences learning programming, both when developing websites and making video game mods.
The times I failed, I was looking at other people's work and trying to figure things out too quickly and in an unstructured way. I saw the complexities of a program that was in development for weeks/months/years, then basically panicked and thought I'd never be able to make something like that.
When I learnt the basics, I then saw how these problems could be broken down into their simplest forms, and ended up learning a lot more efficiently as a result.
Of course, having examples of what to do helps a lot, it's just your examples need to be merely a tad more complex than what you already know, not a masterpiece from some genius that spent the last decade working on it. Or if they are from that sort of person/company, you should try and break down sections of the work at a time to understand where they're coming from, not the whole thing at once.
It's much more reasonable to try and figure out how someone like Facebook or Netflix implemented a profile page or edit button than say, how the whole system works on a greater level.
The times I failed, I was looking at other people's work and trying to figure things out too quickly and in an unstructured way. I saw the complexities of a program that was in development for weeks/months/years, then basically panicked and thought I'd never be able to make something like that.
When I learnt the basics, I then saw how these problems could be broken down into their simplest forms, and ended up learning a lot more efficiently as a result.
Of course, having examples of what to do helps a lot, it's just your examples need to be merely a tad more complex than what you already know, not a masterpiece from some genius that spent the last decade working on it. Or if they are from that sort of person/company, you should try and break down sections of the work at a time to understand where they're coming from, not the whole thing at once.
It's much more reasonable to try and figure out how someone like Facebook or Netflix implemented a profile page or edit button than say, how the whole system works on a greater level.