Feels like I'm cheating

So I’ve made it to Basic Algorithm Scripting section in FCC and up until now I’ve worked through most of the problems on my own and using Read-Search-Ask(mostly reading what others have asked about the same problems).

But now I’ve done Reverse a String, Factorialize a Number, and Check for Palindromes and every one of those I’ve pretty much had to look for the “Answer” because I just get stuck…

I really really tried figuring them out on my own and a couple times I was almost right or had the right idea but the wrong setup or had mistakes in my code.

My question is am I hurting my learning process by doing this?

Should I go back and touch up on areas that I feel I might be weak in?( I do go back to previous lessons that relate to the current problem I’m working on)

Is this normal? Has anyone else that has completed FCC or knows how to code gone through this?

Just looking for some advice and maybe a little motivation.

Thank!

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This has been covered a lot:

https://forum.freecodecamp.com/t/depressed-overwhelmed-and-cheating/83205
https://forum.freecodecamp.com/t/does-it-count-as-cheating-i-will-be-glad-to-read-your-opinions/100212
https://forum.freecodecamp.com/t/did-i-cheat-the-system/71347
https://forum.freecodecamp.com/t/validate-us-telephone-numbers-did-i-cheat/57839

tl;dr, everyone starts from the same place, and it’s a struggle for everyone to improve.

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Hey Dorian,

I think what you are doing is definitely not cheating. If you try to figure out what to do and don’t get there, it is ok to read the forums and look for the answers and how the person came up with that answer. I do that a lot myself when I can’t find the right answer or when I don’t have a good idea about how to tackle the problem presented in the scripting challenges.

I do believe it is actually good for your learning experience. It is sort of like math in school. At first, your teacher let’s you know what exactly you have to do in order to get to the answer, coding is very similar in this way, at least for me. I go back to my profile page and look at the solutions for previous problems when I don’t remember, and I find that by doing so, you learn a lot and the concept sticks.

I would say just keep doing what you are doing, for me, every time I check the answer and see why I didn’t get it right the first time, is just as instructional as the challenges themselves. Just be try and be sure you understand the code and what it is doing, so you can have a better grasp on the concept at hand.

Hope this helps, keep up the good work!

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Thanks for linking those posts!

I did a quick search on my topic before writing this post but kinda felt the need to write my own for venting/motivational purposes and to help me keep my head in the game.:grin:

The math class analogy makes a lot of sense.

I’m just going to keep hacking away at this until I get it.

Thanks for replying!