> The program hasn’t even gotten to the point where it can comprehend the possibility of executing that line of code. I mutter to myself, “How did you let it ge

> The program hasn’t even gotten to the point where it can comprehend the possibility of executing that line of code. I mutter to myself, “How did you let it get this bad?” I support a lot of scientists-who-sometimes-code, and I get this all the time. They bring me in and show me the 5000 line Python (or Matlab if I'm unlucky) script they've written. "It doesn't work." Turns out they've written 5000 lines of code without having ever once tried to run a smaller piece while they were writing it. Not even once. They write the whole thing and THEN when it doesn't run on the first try, they don't know what to do.