Talking to a senior dev at my local library changed how I practice.

I was grinding through a Python course at the library in Portland last Tuesday, and this guy in his 60s sat down next to me. He said, "You're copying code, not learning it. Spend 20 minutes breaking someone else's project on GitHub instead." I tried it and broke three things in an hour, but I actually understood what each line did after. Anyone else have a weird tip that clicked way better than tutorials?

2 comments

2 Comments

danieltaylor1mo ago

Wait, a senior dev just sat down and gave you advice at the library? That's wild. I've been coding for like two years and the most help I've gotten is someone telling me my indentation was wrong on Stack Overflow. And "break someone else's project" is such a backwards idea, but it makes total sense. I spent a whole Saturday trying to fix a broken calculator app and learned more about variables than any tutorial ever showed me.

phoenixh741mo ago

Yeah that's pretty much how it goes. I got roasted on Stack Overflow once for asking about a for loop and someone just posted a link to the docs. No advice, just a "read the manual" slap. But that calculator thing you did? That's the real deal. Tutorials show you the clean path, but debugging someone else's mess teaches you how to actually think like a dev.