That time a coworker tried to teach me Python with a single "Hello World"

Back at my old job in Austin, this junior dev named Mike sat me down and said, "Just copy this one line, you'll get it." He literally typed out "print('Hello World')" and walked away, leaving me staring at the terminal for 20 minutes. I didn't even know how to save the file yet. Has anyone else had someone assume you can code just because you can copy-paste?

2 comments

2 Comments

oscar_hunt6125d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah that bit about just copying one line and walking away... that's pretty much how half the people I know teach anything these days. They assume you'll just "get it" because they've been doing it for years and it's second nature to them now. I've seen the same thing with people trying to teach someone how to cook, they hand them a recipe and say "just follow this" without explaining why you need to brown the meat first or what happens if you skip a step. Or how to change a tire, someone will say "just loosen the lug nuts" but they forget to tell you the car needs to be jacked up first. It's like people forget what it was like to be a beginner. They skip over all the tiny little steps that seem obvious to them but are completely new to you. And that's the real problem, not the complexity of the thing itself but the gap in what they assume you know and what you actually know.

bailey.sam25d ago

Them assuming you'll just get it" - that line hit me hard. I used to think teaching was just about knowing the material. Thought if I could do it, I could explain it. But you're right, the gap between what you know and what they know is everything now. Changed my whole view. I catch myself now asking "what do you already know" before I start explaining anything. Makes a world of difference.