c/coding-for-beginners

Got stuck on a simple loop for 2 hours and finally figured it out by writing it on paper

I was trying to build a for loop in Python that counted backwards and kept messing up the range() parameters until I drew each step on graph paper and saw my mistake... has anyone else found that physically writing code out helps when you're totally stuck?

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miabennett•10h ago

Spent 6 hours debugging a missing semicolon in JavaScript

I was working on a basic calculator project for a course I'm taking. Everything looked fine in the code, but the whole thing just wouldn't run. I checked my loops, my variables, even rewrote a whole function from scratch. After 6 hours of staring at it, I finally noticed I forgot a semicolon after a return statement inside an if block. It was literally one character. Has anyone else spent way too long on a dumb syntax error like this?

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christopherj63•2d ago

That guy who said 'build projects not tutorials' got me thinking

I spent 3 weeks doing a Python tutorial on Udemy and still couldn't write a script to rename my photos, so maybe he was right that actually building something janky teaches you more than perfect code.

c/coding-for-beginners

Got stuck on a simple loop for 2 hours and finally figured it out by writing it on paper

Spent 6 hours debugging a missing semicolon in JavaScript

That guy who said 'build projects not tutorials' got me thinking

Tried freeCodeCamp vs Codecademy for a month, one was way better for me

TIL the hard way that one missing semicolon can wreck a whole Saturday

Vent: Spent 4 hours tracking down a missing semicolon

Tried to fix one line of code and broke the whole login page for 3 hours

Spent 3 months learning Python before I realized I should've started with JavaScript

Wasted 3 weeks on codecademy before someone told me to try freecodecamp instead

Pro tip: I used to hate Python indentation rules, now I get why they matter

Just learned that the first 'bug' in code was literally an actual moth stuck in a relay back in 1947

Why does every beginner tutorial skip explaining variables scope?

That one comment about 'just start typing' finally clicked for me

Wasted $120 on a coding bootcamp prep course that was just YouTube videos

The day I deleted my 3 year old beginner project folder last week

Overheard a guy at the library say 'Python is just for data science' and it got me thinking about how beginners get boxed in by labels

Got told my code was 'too clever' and it stung at first

Debate: How long should a simple CSS layout actually take?

Should I fix my broken code myself or ask for help right away?

Spent 4 hours debugging a CSS issue that was just a missing semicolon

My first github commit was a disaster compared to what I do now

Why does nobody talk about how confusing Git is when you start?

That time my uncle told me to stop overcomplicating my code

My first real coding project broke in 10 minutes flat

That "Hello World" took me 3 hours and I almost quit