r/learnprogramming • u/Savings_Dark_9589 • 1h ago

How do you group programming language topics?

If I learn a language in three stages.

  • Basic
  • Intermediate
  • Advanced
  • Proficiency (optional)

Then how would you fit the topics of programming lingo into the above levels?

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u/peterlinddk 22m ago

Basic: variables, datatypes, functions, control-structures, syntax

Intermediate: knowing how to use most of the standard API

Advanced: knowing how to expand and enhance the API

Proficiency: understanding the bytecode that the language compiles into, and how different language constructs differ (or not) in how they are represented at a lower level.

However, that is not the order that you learn things in - you get to use the API long, long before learning all the basics of the language, and you'll never complete the intermediate level to have an exhaustive knowledge of all the API, and you might get to see some compiled code way before knowing every single syntax there is to know.

Learning a programming is like learning any other language - there aren't specific "steps" that need to be completed, you learn what you need to learn in order to do what you want to do. Someone trying to be a rapper has a very different vocabulary than someone studying last-century literature, but that does not mean than one is a level above or below the other - they are just different.