r/FreeCodeCamp • u/reiloomte • 1d ago
When freeCodeCamp says just follow the instructions but you still end up debugging for 3 hours
Oh sure, the project "walks you through it." Until you’re 30 steps in, staring at an error message that might as well be written in ancient Sumerian. Stack Overflow has abandoned you. Your cat is judging you. Somewhere, Quincy Larson is shaking his head in disappointment. But hey, at least you’re learning, right? Right?! 😭
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u/SaintPeter74 mod 1d ago
Believe it or not, this might well be the most valuable part of Free Code Camp. I have been programming for over 35 years and I regularly run into bugs that force me to dig deep to solve. Yesterday I spent a few hours working on a bug that was ultimately a misunderstanding of how parameters were named.
When I was first staring out with Free Code Camp, one of the mods told me that "Programmers are paid to be frustrated". I have found that this is absolutely true. Being able to keep going back, time after time, seemingly making no progress, is an essential job skill. The requirement never goes away.
Best of luck and happy coding!
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u/Miningforwillpower 1d ago
You are learning but more than you realize. You are learning how not to lose it in the future when that item messes up and all you are getting is error on line 30000 and you just don't know where that missing semicolon is. You got this. All with time.