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Serious question, I dropped my habit of copying code line by line after a guy at a meetup in Austin called me out
I used to type out every single example from tutorials by hand because some blog post said it helps you learn. Then at a beginner meetup in Austin this guy watched me retype a 30 line to-do app and asked why I was wasting 40 minutes on muscle memory instead of breaking the code on purpose. He had me delete one line, run it, see the error, and guess the fix before looking anything up. My error messages started actually making sense about two weeks later. Do you all retype stuff or just paste it and poke at it?
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rubyshah19d ago
Tried the copy paste thing for a while and it never stuck. What actually helped was taking working code and breaking it on purpose, same as that guy told you. I would delete a random line or swap two things around, run it, and read the error before fixing it. After a couple weeks I could look at a traceback and know right where to go instead of just staring at it. Retyping 30 lines by hand is just typing practice, not coding practice. Poking at it and breaking stuff teaches you way more.
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