Anyone else feel like this with JavaScript, or just me?

Yes! I totally relate!

I think it's a lot about just practicing. I took an admissions exam for a bootcamp that had 5 fairly simple questions and totally bombed it. I could not get one thing to work. After crying for several hours, I resolved to figure stuff out. I remembered what the questions were (test a string to see if it is a palindrome...) and I worked on solving them. It took me over a week. I reviewed Dave's lessons (which I think are the best, but just not enough), joined code academy and started going through their lessons, got a free electronic copy of Eloquent Javascript, read and worked through the first few chapters of problems there(very hard but very worthwhile to really try to do it on my own- when I finally got it, I REALLY GOT IT), and started working on the problems available on coderbyte (no, I cannot solve any of them in the time allotted for bonus points, they usually take me an hour to a few days to solve).

Then, about after a month of working on things this way, I went to a free JavaScript workshop with about 30-40 people and I actually was able to work through the problems in the given timeframe of 20-30 minutes. The majority of people were stuck in the 'but I studied a lot, but I just don't even know what to start typing' way. Which is where I was a few weeks earlier.

There are days I feel that just rolling a potato across my keyboard would come up with better code than I could. Then there are other days where I get a little line of code and feel super awesome. From talking to other people, this seems to be a pretty normal way to feel.

@Jacob- thanks for the MIT link! It looks like a great resource!

I hear yeah, and yes you're right. It's really hard to "just know" how to do things after watching a video. I had this problem for a while, and I decided to supplement my Treehouse learning with MIT's free Computer Sciences classes, and logic classes. I highly recommend you watch these lectures and take notes on them. It will greatly improve your understanding of Computer Science and Coding in general.

MIT Open courseware

Yeah, I was understanding variables and all that, and then we hit the math and I feel like something was left out, like either this wasn't explained well, or my abysmal math brain just went "NOPE" and got stuck.

I am baffled by everything that just happened in this video. I feel like there is more expected than has been taught.

I always feel like this, and I feel like a lot of people feel the same way. Personally, I think it's because I never properly learned programming at a college or really took the time to learn it in my free time (something I'm remedying right now).

I can tell you that with practice, particularly by working on silly little projects you're passionate about, you'll get better. Things will just become second nature even if you don't thoroughly understand what's going on behind the scenes.

That's not really a good thing though. It means you'll write code and debate with people just based on your habits, not by critically thinking.

Sorry I don't have much advice for this situation. I suspect practicing math on Khan Academy will strengthen that part of the brain.

One thing I'm surprised nobody mentioned is design patterns. Learn as many as you can and practice implementing them. Really try to understand why they're best practices and you'll start writing better code. https://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/book/

Oh, and the random integer between 2 numbers thing is just JavaScript being garbage. Here's how you do it in Python: random.randint(1, 10).

Unless you're looking for a JS job in the next few months, it might be a good idea to learn how to program with a simpler language like Python.

Best of luck.

Great, will do. I eventually want to get into software programming/engineering too, so all this will be of very high value.

All about practice and once you understand it, even when you come back months/years down the road, you will pick it up again fast. I haven't done js since august but rather did other progrmaming tracks here (java/android) and now that ive restarted js, it is definetely a lot easier than the first time. But once you understand these concepts, these concepts will spread into every single programming language and your life will be a lot easier

Same here, feel like getting the basics, but when I saw challenge question from fullstack academy， I have no idea whats going on.....

what I mean is knowing the concept is still far from solving the whole problem,

I felt the same way, and this was really the first video/challenge in the course that made me feel this way. Super discouraging - maybe I just need more reps, but perhaps maybe I just don't have the aptitude for it as you say. I'll keep trying though - the people above gave some really helpful input and links.