Been teaching Python to beginners for 5 years and one mistake keeps showing up

Every single person I've helped seems to think they need to memorize every function before they write anything. I've seen maybe 30 beginners try to learn coding like it's a history exam with flashcards. Then they get stuck on week two because they can't recall the exact syntax for a for loop. You don't need to know it all by heart. You need to know how to look it up fast and apply it. I still Google basic stuff every day at my shop's computer system. Why are people so scared of using documentation?

3 comments

3 Comments

blair9909d ago

My buddy Tim decided to learn Python last year for his small business and within two weeks he was pulling his hair out because he couldn't remember if it was "print" with a capital P or lowercase. He actually bought one of those little pocket reference books like we used in high school and carried it around everywhere. I had to sit him down and show him I still look up how to open a file in Python every single time I write a script. He was so embarrassed when he realized even experienced devs don't have everything memorized. Now he just keeps a browser tab open with the Python docs and he's actually getting stuff done instead of stressing about memorization. It's like people think coding is a test you gotta pass instead of a skill you just use.

kim_mason559d ago

Yeah but nobody's looking up how to open a file every single time because they're bad at their job, it's just that Python has like six different ways to do it depending on what you want. I've been doing this long enough to know that half the battle is just knowing what to search for. @kevin_williams is right, I probably spend as much time on Stack Overflow as I do writing code and nobody cares as long as the stuff works. Tim's pocket reference book thing is actually kind of wholesome though, reminds me of when I used to keep a cheat sheet taped to my monitor.

kevin_williams9d ago

Is that not the truth though? I've been writing code for like a decade and I still have to Google "python read csv" every time because I can never remember the exact syntax...