How did you learn to code?

Hey guys! Been reading the sub for a while. I’m looking for some advice from anyone willing to give.

In short, I have an interest in handling transcriptomic datasets and running informatics on my own, but my background in coding is minimal. My current workflow has involved relying on ChatGPT to generate code, run the analysis, and compare the DeSEQ2 outputs against available supplementary files/published figures for validation. If the outputs are consistent between the other group and my own, I take that as a win. With that said, the code itself that has been spit out at me is basically a black box…

For obvious reasons, i feel this is not good for a couple of reasons Ive thought of:

1. while I am getting consistent outputs tk the papers, I do not understand how Im actually generating the outputs well

2. my assumption is that there is no guarantee the published research was also analyzed correctly/the methodology could not be improved

3. using my current strategy, I would not be able to know if any omics data i create is valid since I do not have a published output to compare against.

I currently use Python and R, and would generally like to stay in this system, but want to be able to gain an understanding of the code im creating. My advisor is not well versed in coding, and while my mentor for informatics has said the code is fine after his viewing, I dont want to feel as though ChatGPT is the expert in the room.

If anyone has some insight in how I can learn how to write my own code/good resources to begin coding, please let me know. I appreciate it and all the threads that have helped so far!