Where It Comes To Use

You might be surprised to hear this, as some have been in the past- but isolated learning is one of the better ways to practice. While I do believe that throwing you into the weeds (as REplay does) is helpful, I also think that it is important to understand the fundamentals and train in isolated environments.

The end goal does not always have to be a CTF either, sometimes, It can be just to analyze some data types, maybe some information and so on from there!

Real World Limitations

One thing worth noting about isolated training that I actually bring up quite frequently is the complexity in the real world. Most modern code bases are not that simple and even if they are, the compiler optimizes it so much that it becomes more complex on top of what could already be complex enough code. This makes it significantly harder to train as compiler optimization is quite unpredictable unless you know the ins and out of machine-code based compilers and understand the techniques, algorithms and more implemented.

However, despite this limitation, this does not mean it is NOT worth checking out. Because it definitely is! I think that, for beginners, isolated training is one of the more helpful ways that students get to learn about data types, structures, classes, how memory works, how computers work, how compilers work and so on from there! Do not let these limitations prevent you as there are always different methods and advances you can make to get a much more in depth understanding!

How do I do it?

Isolated training is simple, as explained previously, simply start out small and the more you understand a piece or segment of code, try to make it as advanced as you can each new time around. Go from basic arithmetic to entire matrix multiplication! Yes, you can do that if you are knowledgable in programming!