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Question: Hi Justin, I've taken classes in HTML, CSS and PHP. They have all completely scared the crap out of me and all that happened was that I got absolutely terrified of not doing well at them. What do I do if I'm terrified of being programming? I get completely terrified if I don't understand what's going on and what I have to do. How come you were never scared of not getting an A or messing up a program or being dumber than the rest of the class?
Asked by Nevin McDevin (107.15.131.x) on July 26 2020, 5:33am
Reply on July 26 2020, 3:43pm:
    It's OK to make mistakes, get things wrong, fail. That's part of the process. When things don't work as you expect, you get to figure out why you don't understand. I make as many mistakes as anyone, it's what happens next that is important.

    I should add: version control (e.g. git) is hugely helpful for this -- being able to see where you've been, what happenes when you change things, being able to go back in time, all are very helpful (and not using it now for any project that takes more than a day's worth of work would be unthinkable).


Comments:
  • Posted by Nevin McDevin (107.15.131.x) on July 26 2020, 10:45pm:
    Thanks, Justin. So what should happen next after you make a mistake? And how do you prevent it from starting a bad spiral?

  • Posted by Mespotine (2.247.250.x) on July 27 2020, 12:19am:
    You learn from it and try to improve it. The funny things about making mistakes(especially while learning) is that you become better in your craft. It could even help to write a tool twice:once to make all mistakes and the second time you rewrite it from scratch with all lessons learnt. Your current mistakes are actually your experience in the future.

  • Posted by Justin on July 27 2020, 11:15am:
    (+1) -- the important thing is a desire (and hopefully perseverence) to understand why something is wrong


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