🐿️Pinecone Attack

c/coding-for-beginners

12

riverwhite•4h ago

All those 'learn Python in 24 hours' videos are useless for beginners

I checked a study from a coding bootcamp that showed 78% of people who start with those crash courses quit within 2 weeks. Has anyone else found that slow projects at your own pace work way better than trying to speedrun?

23

thompson.christopher•22h ago

Bought a $50 Python course on Udemy that was 8 years outdated

I figured a cheap course couldn't hurt. Started learning about loops and then the instructor kept referencing Python 2.7 like it was still normal. Half the code wouldn't even run on my computer. I spent like 3 hours googling workarounds before I realized the course was from 2016. Total waste of a Saturday. Has anyone else gotten burned by an old course that had good reviews from back in the day?

20

wyattbennett•1d ago

Overheard a guy at a Python meetup say 'if you use more than one if statement, you're doing it wrong'

I was at this local coding night in Austin last Tuesday and some dude with a laptop covered in stickers actually said that, so I asked him how else you'd validate user input and he just walked away, has anyone else run into these purist gatekeepers at meetups?

3

mary836•2d ago

TIL I hit 500 solved coding challenges without noticing

I was just messing around on Codewars last night and checked my profile. Turns out I solved 500 problems over the last 10 months. I started out knowing nothing about Python and now I can actually write stuff that works. Has anyone else lost track of their progress like that?

5

robin777•4d ago

My cousin tried to debug my code with a rubber chicken

He sat down at my laptop, grabbed this squeaky chicken off my desk, and started pressing it against the monitor saying the bugs would flee. I just stared at him for 10 seconds before asking if he could at least check the console errors first. Anyone else have family who think programming is magic?

31

mason.anna•6d ago

My first SQL query finally worked after 4 days of trying

Last Tuesday I was stuck on a simple SELECT statement for my beginner class. I kept getting syntax errors because I forgot the semicolon at the end (rookie mistake, I know). My instructor just said "you're close, check line 4" without giving me the answer. When I finally ran it and saw the table pop up, I nearly fell out of my chair. Has anyone else had that moment where one tiny fix made everything click for the first time?

23

michaelrodriguez•7d ago

I finally told a coworker to stop using comments for obvious code

Had a guy at my last job who wrote 10 lines of Python with 8 lines of comments explaining each simple variable. I asked him why and he said it was for 'future proofing.' I straight up told him that just makes it harder to read. He got quiet for a second then admitted he learned that from a bootcamp 3 years ago. Anyone else deal with someone over-commenting basic stuff?

22

robin777•8d ago

Switched from copying YouTube tutorials line by line to actually reading the docs last month

I spent my first 6 months of learning JavaScript copying whatever some guy in a hoodie did on screen, then my project broke after a single update. I finally sat down with the MDN documentation for 3 hours one Saturday and actually understood why my loops were failing. Has anyone else hit that wall where tutorials stop working and you have to dig into the official docs?

17

coleman.christopher•10d ago

Started with Python but switched to JavaScript after one project

Tbh I spent 3 weeks learning Python loops and functions but got stuck when I tried to make a simple web scraper work for my car parts inventory. Switched to JavaScript the next day and had a working script in 4 hours - anyone else find that one language just clicks way faster than others?

27

wesley873•10d ago

The whole "learn by building" thing might be overrated for beginners

I keep seeing people say just start building something and you'll pick up code as you go. But last month I tried making a simple to-do list app without knowing basic loops and ended up with 200 lines of copy pasted code that broke on the second item. On the other hand my buddy spent 3 weeks on a Python fundamentals course and built the same thing in 2 hours. Is tossing people into projects really the best way or are structured tutorials the safer bet for true beginners? I'm leaning toward the tutorial route after my disaster but wanna hear from others who've gone either way.

24

grace565•10d ago

Shoutout to the bug that made me redo my whole project

I spent 3 hours last night trying to figure out why my React app kept crashing, only to realize I forgot a closing bracket in my useState hook. Stared at the code for an hour before I caught it, felt like such a beginner move. Has anyone else had a tiny syntax error waste a ton of their time?

26

johnson.adam•11d ago

Bought a used HTML book from 1999 at a thrift store and now I'm wondering why beginners even bother with modern frameworks

I paid $3.50 for this dusty copy of "HTML for Dummies" at a Goodwill in Portland and the whole chapter on building a site with just tables and inline styles actually works better for learning than dragging through 30 hours of React tutorials, has anyone else gone back to the basics just to unconfuse themselves?

18

seana14•12d ago

Hit 1000 lines of code on my first real project and realized half of it was useless

Spent two weeks building a to-do app in Python. Got to line 1000 and felt proud. Then I looked back and saw I wrote 400 lines just handling bad inputs and edge cases. Why do beginners always overthink stuff like that? Anyone else end up deleting half their code when they review it?

22

angela_park•12d ago

Turns out learning Python basics in a weekend is actually possible

Ngl, I was super skeptical when my coworker told me I could pick up Python fundamentals in just two days. I'd tried coding before with those 3 hour YouTube tutorials and quit every time. But last Saturday I locked myself in with Automate the Boring Stuff and actually wrote a working script by Sunday night. It was just a simple file renamer for my store's inventory sheets, but it saved me 45 minutes on Monday alone. Has anyone else had a fast win that changed their mind about learning to code?

23

the_joel•13d ago

A coworker showed me their "final" Python script and it was just 400 lines of if statements strung together

I walked over to help them debug a loop error and realized they had copy-pasted the same block of code 30 times with different numbers instead of using a list, which I guess technically works but took me a full 10 minutes to even figure out what they were trying to do - has anyone else seen someone reinvent the wheel in the most painful way possible?

23

tessa_kim3•15d ago

Used to hate using comments in my code until one bug broke me

I spent 3 hours tracking down a logic error in a script I wrote last month because I didn't leave any notes explaining what each section did. Fixed it in 5 minutes after adding comments for every loop and function - never skipping them again. Anyone else have a moment that made you change your coding habits?

16

olivias88•15d ago

Found a trick that finally made CSS grid click for me

I was stuck for like 2 weeks trying to get a simple 3 column layout to line up right in my project. I kept messing with widths and floats and nothing worked. Then I read this one post about using `grid-template-areas` with named sections and it just clicked. Has anyone else found that naming your grid areas makes it way easier to visualize the layout?

6

abby_martin28•17d ago

That popular "learn Python in 30 days" bootcamp my buddy pushed on me just published their completion rates

Turns out only 12% of people who start it actually finish, and I found that stat buried in a Reddit thread from a former instructor last Tuesday, so has anyone else noticed these beginner courses are basically designed to make you feel bad instead of actually teaching you?

9

kevin_sullivan•18d ago

Spent 4 hours debugging a missing semicolon in JavaScript

I was working on a simple calculator project last night and it kept breaking at the same point. The console showed nothing helpful, just a blank error. I rewrote entire functions, checked my logic three times, even restarted my computer. Four hours later I noticed I left out a single semicolon in a loop condition. That tiny thing broke everything and I felt like an idiot. Has anyone else lost that much time to a typo that small?

6

irisross•18d ago

Appreciation post: that 'rubber duck' debugging method actually saved my morning

I was stuck on a Python script that kept throwing a weird index error for like 45 minutes. I tried reading the code over and over but my brain just kept seeing what I expected to see. Finally I grabbed a little toy duck off my desk and explained each line out loud to it. Halfway through saying 'and then this variable gets... wait a sec' I spotted the typo where I used the wrong list index. Has anyone else had this silly trick actually work for them or am I just weird?

0

dixon.daniel•19d ago

Overheard a teenager say coding is 'just typing' and it got me thinking

I was waiting for coffee yesterday and this kid, maybe 16, told his friend that anyone can code now with AI. He said it's just typing words into a box. Made me chuckle but also made me think about how things have shifted. When I started learning BASIC in the 80s, you had to understand every line. No help, no internet. Now my nephew uses ChatGPT to write Python scripts. I wonder if the same frustration is still there when things break. For those of you learning now, do you feel like the foundation stuff matters, or is it more about just making things work however you can?

6

rosejackson•22d ago

The one thing beginners forget about error handling

I keep seeing new coders wrap their whole script in one giant try/except block and call it a day. Just the other day I was helping a guy debug his web scraper and it was swallowing every error without telling him which line failed. Catch specific exceptions, people, or you'll spend hours hunting ghosts later on.

4

tyler368•22d ago

Spent 4 hours fixing a typo that broke my whole landing page

I was working on my first personal project site last Tuesday at a coffee shop in Denver, and the CSS grid just would not align no matter what I tried. Turned out I had typed 'grid-tempalte-columns' instead of 'grid-template-columns' in the stylesheet. Has anyone else burned hours tracking down a single wrong letter in their code?

18

stellat87•24d ago

TIL the hard way that cheap hosting will wreck your first project

Honestly, I spent $3.99 a month on some random hosting service for my first little portfolio site. Everything worked fine until I tried to add a simple contact form, then the site kept timing out and crashing. Turns out the server couldn't handle even basic database calls. I ended up migrating everything to a $15 a month plan with a proper host, and it's been smooth ever since. Has anyone else had their first coding project kill their cheap hosting right away?

18

the_robin•24d ago

I finally learned why my loops kept breaking after 3 months of coding

Last week I was working on a simple Python script for my beginner project, and my while loop just kept crashing. My buddy Sarah, who's been coding for like 5 years, looked at it for 2 minutes and pointed out I was missing a break condition. Turns out I'd been making this same mistake since I started learning 3 months ago in her basement study group. Has anyone else had a small fix totally change how you see your own code?