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Wahoowa! This also explains the popularity of interactive platforms like Codecademy/CodeSchool/Treehouse, etc. Ton of handholding and pre-filled syntax. We desc

by bhaumik 12y ago

Wahoowa! This also explains the popularity of interactive platforms like Codecademy/CodeSchool/Treehouse, etc. Ton of handholding and pre-filled syntax. We describe them to our students as "coding on training wheels." Cathy, a new frontend student, experienced similar struggles when starting her first real project - a simple HTML/CSS resume. She spent countless hours fixing minor typos and almost quit. It wasn't until she was reassured that this was _normal_ and "real" programming was much different from codecademy did she feel like she was truly learning. She wrote about her first month (with similar highs and lows as OP's visual) in this post: http://blog.thinkful.com/post/98829096308/my-first-month-coding-an-emotional-roller-coaster http://blog.thinkful.com/post/98829096308/my-first-month-cod.... side note: Erik (OP) is an incredible guy, we had the pleasure to share our experiences in Edtech and it's obvious that he truly cares about student outcomes.

chii 12y ago
> She spent countless hours fixing minor typos and almost quit. it's interesting anecdote! When i was at uni, i noticed that a large number of "beginners" tend to fall into this category too - frustrated at minor typos/language idiosyncrasies. Those who had the mental strength to endure it end up passing the class, while those that just gave up will almost inevitably change their major (and thus, stop programming i guess?). But i think this is a result of poor educational methods, not because of an inherent property in programming.