Remember when you had to copy code from a book to learn?

Back in 2012, I was trying to learn Python from a library book and had to type every single example by hand. If I made one typo, the whole thing would break and I'd have no idea why. Now, I just pull up a free interactive course on Codecademy or watch a quick YouTube video that shows the code running live. The instant feedback changed everything for me. What was your first 'aha' moment when learning to code?

3 comments

3 Comments

jackson.max16d ago

Totally get the library book struggle. Read an article once about how that old school typing actually built muscle memory for syntax. My real moment was finding online forums where people would post their broken code. Seeing other beginners make the exact same missing colon or bracket mistakes I did made it feel less impossible. The community explaining errors in plain English was a game changer. Before that, compiler messages might as well have been written in another language. That shift from feeling alone to being part of a crowd all figuring it out together changed everything for me.

kevinw9415d ago

Compiler messages in plain English? That sounds like science fiction. Mine still read like angry fortune cookies. The shift to community help was real, but some of those old error codes never got the memo.

maryr4315d ago

That community feeling really is everything.