c/coding-for-beginners

Heard a guy at the coffee shop say he learned Python in a month

I was grabbing coffee yesterday and overheard a guy telling his friend he learned enough Python to automate his work tasks in about 30 days. It made me realize maybe I'm overcomplicating my own start by trying to learn everything at once. What's a realistic first project for a total beginner to aim for in a few weeks?

Just looked at my GitHub contribution graph and saw 30 straight days of green squares. I didn't even notice I was doing it.

My first real program broke for three days straight

I was trying to make a simple number guessing game in Python last week, and I kept getting this one error about a variable not being defined. I stared at my screen in my apartment in Austin for hours each night. I finally fixed it on Thursday when I saw I'd spelled 'guess' as 'gues' on line 15. Has anyone else lost a bunch of time to a tiny typo like that?

I used to write all my code in one big file until my project in Austin crashed last month

My first Python loop printed 'hello world' 10,000 times by accident

I forgot a colon and the print statement ran nonstop for a full minute. Anyone know a good way to stop a runaway script?

My brother told me to start with Python, not C++

He's a software engineer and said it would be less frustrating for a beginner. I tried C++ first anyway and got stuck on pointers for a solid week. I switched to Python like he said and built a simple number guessing game in an afternoon. For people just starting, is there a 'right' first language or does it not matter much?

I tried to make a simple 'guess the number' game in Python and accidentally made an infinite loop that froze my computer for 10 minutes

My friend told me coding is like learning to cook, not following a recipe

I was talking to my friend Sam last week about how I keep getting stuck on Python tutorials. She said, 'You're just copying the code like a recipe, but you need to learn why the ingredients work together.' That hit different because I realized I wasn't really learning, just typing. For example, I could make a simple list, but I had no clue how to change it later. I spent 3 days on one project just copying and pasting. How do you switch from just following steps to actually understanding what you're making?

PSA: I just learned the first computer bug was a real moth stuck in a relay

I was reading an old tech history book from the library last week and found a picture of the actual bug. It was a moth taped into a log book from 1947 at Harvard. The note said 'first actual case of bug being found'. I always thought 'debugging' was just a fun word we made up, not a real thing someone had to do. It makes me think about how much easier we have it now. Back then, a tiny bug could stop a whole room sized computer. Now I can fix most of my code errors just by looking at a screen. It's a funny piece of history that really shows how far things have come. Has anyone else found a cool old fact about early computers that surprised them?

Vent: I spent 3 hours trying to decide between learning Python or JavaScript first.

I picked Python because the syntax felt less scary, and it's been way easier to actually build small things like a number guessing game.

I was writing the same code block over and over for a month before I saw the problem

I was building a simple website for my friend's bakery and kept copying the same five lines of CSS to style each menu section. After about three weeks, I looked at my stylesheet and it was over 300 lines of basically the same thing. A guy in a YouTube tutorial said 'if you're copying, you should be making a class' and it clicked. Has anyone else had that 'duh' moment with CSS classes?

Showerthought: I spent 3 hours deciding between Python and JavaScript for my first project.

I picked Python to make a simple text game, but got stuck because I kept using semicolons out of habit from my old C class. Anyone else have a 'language muscle memory' problem when starting out?

Can we talk about the time I tried to make a simple 'Hello World' program in Python and my cat walked on the keyboard...

I ended up with a file named 'helllllllllo.py' that printed 'wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwworld' because my cat sat on the 'w' key for a solid 5 seconds, which honestly taught me more about file naming and keyboard inputs than the tutorial did.

Just wrote my 100th line of code that actually works

I was following a Python tutorial from a site called Codecademy. The project was a simple number guessing game. I typed it all out, hit run, and nothing broke. It just worked. I counted the lines after, and it was exactly 100. For months, my code would just crash or do nothing. Seeing that game run, with my own 100 lines, felt huge. It wasn't just copying anymore. I actually understood why the while loop and the if statements were placed where they were. That small win made the last three weeks of frustration totally worth it. Has anyone else hit a specific line count that felt like a real turning point?

I just wrote my 50th line of code that actually worked

I was following a Python tutorial about making a simple number guessing game. After about an hour of typing, deleting, and looking up error messages, I hit run and the whole thing just... ran. No red text, nothing. It asked for a guess, I typed a number, and it told me if I was right. It was only 50 lines total, but seeing it work from start to finish for the first time felt huge. It finally clicked that all those little bits of syntax actually build into something real. Has anyone else had a small program run clean on the first try after a bunch of fails?

Update: I spent $300 on a coding bootcamp video series that was way too hard

I bought a big online course last month that promised to teach Python from scratch. The first few videos were okay, but by week two they jumped straight into building a web app with a database. I got totally lost and couldn't finish any of the projects. Has anyone found a good beginner course that actually starts slow?

Just realized I've written 'Hello, World!' in 12 different languages now. It's a weird little collection.

Shoutout to the free Python course from the Boston library

My little weather app project crashed yesterday because I messed up a loop and it ran forever. I spent about three hours staring at the screen before I remembered a video from that library course about using print statements to track values. Stuck one in, saw the problem right away, and felt like a genius. What's your go-to trick when your code just stops working?

I thought learning Python meant memorizing every single library function

My friend in Chicago said to just google the syntax when I need it, and after six months of coding, I finally get it. I wasted so much time trying to learn everything at once instead of just building a simple project. How did you guys get over that 'need to know everything' feeling when you started?

My friend in Chicago said coding was 'just like following a recipe' and I'm still mad about it.

I mean, I spent a whole weekend stuck on a simple loop problem, and that comment made me feel like an idiot for struggling. Has anyone else had someone say something that just totally missed the point of how hard this can be?

I spent a whole Saturday deciding between learning Python or JavaScript first, and my cat made the choice for me.

My entire project broke because of one missing semicolon

Spent three hours on Wednesday trying to get my first JavaScript function to run. The console just kept saying 'unexpected token'. Checked my logic, my variables, everything. My friend finally looked at it and pointed to line 15. I forgot a semicolon. One character. That was it. Felt like the biggest idiot. Has anyone else lost a whole evening to a tiny syntax error like that?

Update: I saw a digital menu board glitch at a cafe in Seattle

I was getting coffee yesterday and the screen showing the menu started flickering with random code. It looked like HTML tags mixed with prices. I asked the barista about it and she said their new system had a bug that showed the backend sometimes. It made me think about how even simple things we see every day run on code. Has anyone else seen a public tech fail that made you curious about how it works?

Went to the library in Springfield and saw they only teach Scratch for kids

I was there last Tuesday and noticed their whole 'intro to coding' program for beginners is just block-based stuff. I think this is a mistake because it doesn't show how real code is written, which can make the jump to Python or JavaScript way harder. What's a better first language to actually learn the basics of typing out code?

Just found out my first little script has run over 100 times

I made a Python script last month to rename a bunch of my photos, and I checked the log file today. It showed it ran 103 times since I set it up on my old laptop. I had no idea I used it that much. Has anyone else been surprised by how often they use a tool they built?