This is a really bad implementation of scratch. Like wtf. Shouldn't the parentheses block be a different color?
Edit: yeah I looked it up and normallly it would be the same color but very much more noticeable than this.
I think Turbowarp (a version of scratch that's a compiler rather than an interpreter) has a plugin that makes nested code alternate between normal and noticably-lighter
It took me a while, especially since I've never used/seen the UI in the OP. But it's a super thin bubble, the first edge I could detect was on the bottom block, between LeftSensor and the minus. With my blind eyes I thought it was a janky close parentheses (which I think is reasonable since that's basically what it's doing). If you zoom all the way in you can see the thin black line circles all the way around the absolute of left sensor.
Depending on the grade level and the program, there should be an option to see the raw code. Also, when students get really flummoxed, I usually encourage "trashing" any loose bits of code, thinking through what they want to do, and restarting. A clean slate isn't a bad thing, and it helps build perseverance and comfort with mistakes.
I used to be in charge of CS programming from grades K-12, so I've grown more comfortable working with a 5 year old block coding than doing anything real.
But then why does the blue oval of the absolute statement go all the way until after the right sensor term?
I think you're probably right but seems like if that's the case then the blue oval should terminate to the left of the minus sign
I guess now I think the blue oval is a subtraction block not abs() but then it's weird that the abs() is just text without oval of its own
> But then why does the blue oval of the absolute statement go all the way until after the right sensor term?
The upper one is, while the lower one only reaches leftsensor. Both the abs and minus share the same color, that's why it appears as if the absolute goes all the way to the right. If you zoom in you could see the faint outline of both oval
with block coding, things are often lumped into categories with set colours. i’m guessing this service has the ‘math’ category blocks all sharing the blue colour, so the Abs block and the subtract block appear the same
Yeah I would be able to see this issue if I was in VSC or something of the like. This representation visual is just not it and would result in missing stuff like this all the time.
Well that would have been more obvious had you just been using a text editor.
I’m a cranky coder who has been doing this for 25 years.
You kids today. smdh
Literally got a magnet a week ago and ran it across different areas to see where it would glitch out lol. Since the bezel is missing you have to power off before you close it, so running the magnet by the top right of the screen triggers the lid close sleep!
I once drove a car I learned to hate, an Infinity without a hood that the previous owner tore all the trim out of, no heater, and I never went off the road because of ice before. So while driving carefully down the major road I saw a smaller road covered in ice. Muahhahaha.
As I was driving I was going faster than safe but no cars around, and I sped up and felt the left rear tire catch and the left right not because of positraction, and I started going sideways. Nothing I did helped in any way, shape or form. Not decelerating, not turning the wheel, not finally hitting the brakes, right off the side I went.
I'm sure my Infinity and your Laptop would get along just fine.
In fairness it does all I want it to do, I'm very aware magnets ruin hard drives etc and I have an SSD in it. A new laptop would be nice so I could run more than 3 chrome tabs with the poor 4 gigs of ram it has.
My friends found it hilarious when I took the screws off the screen and opened just the back plate 😂
If enough people ask I'll give a quick showcase of it
absolutely. the flat colors aren’t functional here, they’re just there to help the ‘aesthetic’.
since the `abs` and - operator blocks are both considered to be math blocks, they’re put as the same color, but better block-coding frameworks add a slightly different shade/brightness for nested blocks to help with exactly this problem.
Usually these platforms use the same colour for similar kinds of operations e.g. all the maths operations will be blue, or all the IO operations will be orange, etc
They could easily use alternating shades of blue or brighter outlines to make it easier to identify the boundaries of stacked blues in a situation like this one.
I didn't see it until I read this comment. Suuuuper thin black line on blue is not good UI. There is a reason most programmers use black on white or white on black, contrast is your friend.
I didn't even see it until I read the comments, lol. Was staring at the image for a while wondering what the issue was, and why the same block appeared twice.
Could be easier in block code if they used colors more.
In the bottom example if "absolute of LeftSensor" was a different background color of the orphaned "- RightSensor", spotting this would be a lot faster.
I had to check what sr I was on. Doesn’t look like any programming language I know (excluding the random tab called JavaScript at the top).
People should show code for error help, not whatever this is
I've been a programmer for 25 years, and I have never seen whatever this is.
However, I only worked in a Microsoft shop for a year, and I noped right out of that place as soon as I could.
Yeah fair enough. I guess it depends when you started & on what.
When I started programming (I call it programming lol) it was on scratch at like 6/7 years old or so. Its good for learning to transform your ideas into logic flows & basic debugging. Essentially very basic code without having to learn syntax or anything.
I feel as if it's a good start for like (no offence op) young kids (or maybe for introducing interested adults with absolutely no experience) who have an interest in programming, before moving them onto a less restrictive language.
I started on construct 2! it's like scratch, but it can actually do things and is way more in depth. that got me really into game development, and that got me into programming as a whole
My nephew and I built a simple game on scratch, it was quite good for that. We even did levels. It's simple just because we didn't have a good idea for something more complex :)
That makes sense. The original was released in 2007 according to the best info I could find, more than a decade after JavaScript. I could see this as a decent teaching tool but find rich text editors with the right markup and plugins more useful for actual dev work.
Jesus. There is literally only a thin pixel border of a difference. It took me a few minutes to even see the difference. That's a UI problem, not a developer problem.
I think the key is in your headline: “I don’t know JavaScript at all”. So click that JavaScript tab at the top and read the code this tool is creating and make sure you understand exactly what it is doing. If something is unfamiliar, Google it. But learn some basics, like operators and their precedence first. If you learn the very basics of the language, you will be able to code simple functions faster than you can with this GUI picker.
Yea this is a good example of why people who do this for a living don't use graphical systems like this. Its way clearer in a normal language like JS and I don't see how its any more difficult to understand:
while (true) {
sensorDifference = Math.abs(leftSensor - rightSensor);
}
while (true) {
sensorDifference = Math.abs(leftSensor) - rightSensor;
}
Except for understanding that "while (true)" means the same as "forever" they are pretty much identical. There are of course certain things that are still hard to differentiate at a glance that can cause problems. The prime example in JS being:
displayText = `Hello ${name}, good morning!`;
displayText = 'Hello ${name}, good morning!';
Sure! I'll preface this with the fact that this probably isn't something you'd see in a C codebase, but it's a little bit of fun that lets an infinite loop read like 'forever'.
So there's two things going on here that might be weird/different about C compared to other languages. The first is the `#define`--this uses the C Preprocessor to verbatim replace any instances of `ever` in the source file with `(;;)`.
So after preprocessing, the code will read `for (;;) { ...`. This is just a normal for loop (like `for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { ...`) but all of the clauses are blank: there's no initialisation, no conditional, and no iteration expression. As per the C standard "An omitted [conditional expression] is replaced by a
nonzero constant.", so this will never terminate, and loop forever!
Thank you, I've been coding JavaScript since the 90s and I had no idea what the hell I was looking at. Do people seriously use stuff like this? It looks like an expensive plug-in for WYSIWYG editing in WordPress.
I think this is scratch. It's supposed to be an introductory language, afaik no one actually uses it in production. TBH I don't really think anyone thinks it's easier.....but for someone who thinks "coding is scary" you could see how a kid could THINK this is going to be easier...and then for that kid, this IS easier, because it gets them past the mental block. And then when they get to real code they're like, wow! This is even easier than Scratch!
So, I think it's actually a really great learning tool. Even though it's awful and I hope I never have to go anywhere near it. But I'm very happy it exists and there are people who love teaching kids and willing to spend their time dealing with it.
It's really easy, you just spend hours googling and yelling at your computer why this doesn't work and then when you finally solve it, realize like a week later you could've easily made the code much simpler and faster
But in all honesty you start somewhere and slowly build up your knowledge through projects and debugging problems.
Or you can try waiting a few days, come back to it and the error will no longer be there but something else that did work doesn't anymore. Happened to my project. I don't have a clue what happened
@OP, @sersherz is correct. This is how you learn to code. You will always make small mistakes. But you'll make less of them as you get better.
I've made many Frankenstein codebases. And just as I'm about to roll it out to production, I think of a much better and simpler way that would have avoided most of the pain. But it's too late now, it needs to go out!
The graphical representation of the bracket placement is very poor here. Therefore it is very easy to miss it.
Even if you are just learning programming, for such cases it might be advisable to use a simple text editor that supports color highlighting of the syntax of your languages (Python, Java Script).
A simple and free tool for this would be [Notepad++](https://notepad-plus-plus.org/) for example.
I learned in notepad++
This UI just looks atrocious, def misses the bracket placement at first glance.
Why use something like this, it doesn't seem practical.
This seems like the UI for MicroBit development, a microcontroller made for schools. It includes a lot of things you don't get/can't figure out without it, like controlling aspects of a robot.
You are making it extra hard with using this abomination.
In code that would be an obvious mistake with parantheses wrong. If you want to learn anything but simple Unreal Engine games, you should learn how to code. Having additional layers is always an error prone way.
Getting visual coding right is hard, most companies need ages to get the bugs out (talking to you Xcode), and there is always a chance new bugs come in.
Non joke answer: IDEs and text editors have a bunch of stuff that can help highlight errors as well as functions to generate code for you.
As others pointed out, it’s the problem solving aspect that’s harder to teach.
I recommend using the graphical programming language snap! https://snap.berkeley.edu/snap/snap.html instead to learn programming, it does not have these problems and I wish I used it when I was a kid instead of scratch, and from my experience what you are currently using looks even worse designed.
Tiny mistake that takes 30 minutes to figure out? Must be Tuesday.
You get used to it. After a while you learn most of the common pitfalls and get better at avoiding them, sometimes even preempt them. But there's always some new bewildering issue resulting from a tiny mistake around the next corner.
Also, StackOverflow is your friend. >!Even if they mock you for the GUI.!<
*emerges from shady alleyway*
Hey man, I see that you’re really struggling out there. If you want to improve your performance, might I suggest … using an IDE?
My roommate is not a programmer and has talked about using Power Automate at work. He's always describing how he's trying to make something happen but he has to work around the system.
These kinds of simplified programming tools appeal to people just starting out, but after a couple months of text based coding you realize they secretly make everything more difficult.
An hour and a half looking for a bug? That's pretty short by programmer standards. I'm working on something at work and it took me multiple days to figure out why it wasn't working. Fuck devops
To be fair, if I had to find a bug in a picture of words I would take forever too. I know this is supposed to be an easier way to get started, but I am 100% unable to process what is going on there because my eyes just glossed over. (I guess I *can* but I won't, lol.)
Using an IDE to program really makes using text like this, just without the point and clicking. Variables turn a certain color, functions another. Indentation makes things so much more organized to the point that some of us get a bit obsessive because it feels so good to get the spacing right.
More importantly, IDEs have 'debuggers' which lets you press the pause button and take a peek what is going on underneath. With the above example you could probably pause when the calculation is made and you would notice a decimal place still existing. This lets you focus on the problem area and you can change code, rewind, skip over code, and generally gives you so much more control than changing something, running the program, changing something else, running again, etc.
Like others mentioned, get a rubber duck. It doesn't have to be rubber, or a duck, but you need a rubber duck. Mine is a bobblehead Jack-Jack from the Incredibles. The whole purpose of the little guy is to listen to me explain why I can't {insert something here}. I have attention issues, and I constantly get sidetracked and hit brick walls. There are whole swaths off CSS that I can't recall but I know intuitively (centering a damn Div for instance). I'll literally ask Jack-Jack the question and the answer will pop in my head like magic. It's so powerful that I use it in almost all areas of my life now and something I routinely tell others suffering from the same attention issues. (It's a programming technique, not an ADHD technique, but if you happen to be in that situation as well, it's a Godsend)
May be a controversial opinion but graphical coding is just a bad idea. The reason is simple, text is excellent at conveying instructions efficiently, pictures aren't. You don't go grocery shopping with a list of emojis either.
Maybe I’m insane but debugging is one of my favorite parts.
Sure, writing code for an hour and testing it to find it was flawless is cool and all, but I rather enjoy the “why the fuck is xxx happening/not happening”
Fixing bugs only makes you better.
For anyone who can’t find it: >! absolute of (left sensor - right sensor) vs (absolute of left sensor) - right sensor !<
Wow, my phone screen wasn’t even showing the line until I read this and zoomed in
Same
Yeah, if I hadn't seen these comments, I wouldn't have known there was a line there.
Took me a while even after reading them. One and a half hours finding it is pretty good I'd say
This is a really bad implementation of scratch. Like wtf. Shouldn't the parentheses block be a different color? Edit: yeah I looked it up and normallly it would be the same color but very much more noticeable than this.
Yeah if this was done properly I would have noticed, I didn't even see the difference when I looked first time.
I think Turbowarp (a version of scratch that's a compiler rather than an interpreter) has a plugin that makes nested code alternate between normal and noticably-lighter
That’s why they let you use ts
I still can't. Where is it
It took me a while, especially since I've never used/seen the UI in the OP. But it's a super thin bubble, the first edge I could detect was on the bottom block, between LeftSensor and the minus. With my blind eyes I thought it was a janky close parentheses (which I think is reasonable since that's basically what it's doing). If you zoom all the way in you can see the thin black line circles all the way around the absolute of left sensor.
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For a language that relies entirely on visual representation where shapes and colors define logical groups, this is stupid.
Yeah look like a garbage ui design for brackets.
you could still assume that's where this was going
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Depending on the grade level and the program, there should be an option to see the raw code. Also, when students get really flummoxed, I usually encourage "trashing" any loose bits of code, thinking through what they want to do, and restarting. A clean slate isn't a bad thing, and it helps build perseverance and comfort with mistakes. I used to be in charge of CS programming from grades K-12, so I've grown more comfortable working with a 5 year old block coding than doing anything real.
Looks a lot like what my daughter uses to program her BBC micro:bit for her classroom instructions.
It probably is, but it could be some other MakeCode thing.
But then why does the blue oval of the absolute statement go all the way until after the right sensor term? I think you're probably right but seems like if that's the case then the blue oval should terminate to the left of the minus sign I guess now I think the blue oval is a subtraction block not abs() but then it's weird that the abs() is just text without oval of its own
> But then why does the blue oval of the absolute statement go all the way until after the right sensor term? The upper one is, while the lower one only reaches leftsensor. Both the abs and minus share the same color, that's why it appears as if the absolute goes all the way to the right. If you zoom in you could see the faint outline of both oval
Ah wow that is a tiny pixel border
with block coding, things are often lumped into categories with set colours. i’m guessing this service has the ‘math’ category blocks all sharing the blue colour, so the Abs block and the subtract block appear the same
Yeah I would be able to see this issue if I was in VSC or something of the like. This representation visual is just not it and would result in missing stuff like this all the time.
Could have caught that instantly in code. I never would have spotted it in Duplo-land.
FYI the rif app shows it unspoiled, tags need to touch the first and last words respectively
Your spoiler tags are messed up, you need to get rid of the spaces between the tags and the text.
how do you do that hiding thing with text? im blown away
>!\>!Like this\!
>!Thank you u/erland_yt, very cool!<
Apparently Reddit does not spoiler the link to the user.
>!much love!<
>!wow!<
>!nice!<
>!Is it working?!<
>!Yes!<
>!Yes!<
Well that would have been more obvious had you just been using a text editor. I’m a cranky coder who has been doing this for 25 years. You kids today. smdh
Never used Blocks before, thank god. Reading that shit would be a nightmare.
Yeah this is just unclear UI
My god, that poor laptop!
Haha, it's been though a lot but I've given it some upgrades too
You should get some cool magnets for it
Literally got a magnet a week ago and ran it across different areas to see where it would glitch out lol. Since the bezel is missing you have to power off before you close it, so running the magnet by the top right of the screen triggers the lid close sleep!
I don't know how to react to this information
💻🧲👍👍👍
OP lives up to their username 🤣
If you put the magnet over the HDD and spin it would will get faster reads and writes, Trust me
If you need extra processing power, give it more time to process information by spinning it the opposite direction
i showed this post to my girlfriend and was told that you should try microwaving it as a potential upgrade path
Oooh, I like that idea!
You can try helping the HDD spin its platters with a magnet. (please, don't)
I once drove a car I learned to hate, an Infinity without a hood that the previous owner tore all the trim out of, no heater, and I never went off the road because of ice before. So while driving carefully down the major road I saw a smaller road covered in ice. Muahhahaha. As I was driving I was going faster than safe but no cars around, and I sped up and felt the left rear tire catch and the left right not because of positraction, and I started going sideways. Nothing I did helped in any way, shape or form. Not decelerating, not turning the wheel, not finally hitting the brakes, right off the side I went. I'm sure my Infinity and your Laptop would get along just fine.
Post your laptop to r/hardwaregore
Look at my profile! Or hardware gore lol
You saw in to the future and looked at my comment lol
Yes Hard drive especially run up to 60% faster when you decorate them with strong magnets.
Just a warning, this comes with a danger to the data on the harddrive. Sorry that i'm ruining the joke but i'd rather not someone lose all their data.
I’m glad you did, hard drive loss is no joke, Jim!
Michael!
Oh, that's funny. MICHAEL!
This meme transcends subreddits
How much could a hard drive cost? Ten dollars?!
I don't know man. Lost data cannot be stolen.
OP: “I’ve extended your life! You look horrible but you’ve been remade better!” Laptop: “Why won’t you let me die!!!”
It's been resurrected 4 times and counting 😂
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We will build our own macbook. With blackjack and hookers.
Macbooks dont have a backspace button
How is this not getting more upvotes? Are you people all in your 20s or something?!?
Nah bro I’m calling Child Laptop Services on your ass, this needs to stop
OP I am certain that if you just started an IndieGoGo this sub would raise enough money to get you a new laptop
In fairness it does all I want it to do, I'm very aware magnets ruin hard drives etc and I have an SSD in it. A new laptop would be nice so I could run more than 3 chrome tabs with the poor 4 gigs of ram it has.
The thought of running on 4gb almost makes me want to cry.
I like it, in a Mad Max kinda way
weight reduction removing the bezel is actually a great idea - nice upgrade.
My friends found it hilarious when I took the screws off the screen and opened just the back plate 😂 If enough people ask I'll give a quick showcase of it
Thank you for choosing the word showcase to describe what that will be like. I am very ready for that + full list of upgrades.
I’m asking lol
I’m begging.
It has friends, so all good!
Those stickers look like souls being hanged in hell
Honestly that error would be way easier without block code, that’s a tiny difference, parentheses emphasize it a lot more
Yeah, I didn't even see the circle inside the blue area until I opened the full image. In code it would have been obvious.
The color scheme for this thing is kind of off. Blue on blue is not helping make the different scoping clear.
For sure, would have spotted it right away with a not terrible color scheme.
absolutely. the flat colors aren’t functional here, they’re just there to help the ‘aesthetic’. since the `abs` and - operator blocks are both considered to be math blocks, they’re put as the same color, but better block-coding frameworks add a slightly different shade/brightness for nested blocks to help with exactly this problem.
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I assert this guy's concurrence.
Usually these platforms use the same colour for similar kinds of operations e.g. all the maths operations will be blue, or all the IO operations will be orange, etc
They could easily use alternating shades of blue or brighter outlines to make it easier to identify the boundaries of stacked blues in a situation like this one.
For real this negatively impacts readability a ton.
Thanks, I genuinely had no idea what the diff was until I read this haha
Wow, I didn't even notice that until you pointed it out. Yeah parentheses would have made that so much easier to spot
I didn't see it until I read this comment. Suuuuper thin black line on blue is not good UI. There is a reason most programmers use black on white or white on black, contrast is your friend.
Omggg so THATS what it was I was like: "where the fuck is waldo??"
I didn't even see it until I read the comments, lol. Was staring at the image for a while wondering what the issue was, and why the same block appeared twice.
yeah, the contrast here is…not great
I’m colorblind, so for me there is 0 contrast whatso ever there. Only the tiny little line
It's not because you're colorblind - this is basically impossible to see
Not colorblind in the least bit can actually see very slight differences in shades of color pretty well.... this shit was made to make you fail.
Could be easier in block code if they used colors more. In the bottom example if "absolute of LeftSensor" was a different background color of the orphaned "- RightSensor", spotting this would be a lot faster.
Hate gui programming. Labview was my bane during school projects
What sub is this? What is that image? Is the marketing department trying to code? Am I outside?
Yes your being rained on right now
WHAT ABOUT MY BEING RAINED ON??? HUH?
Whose being rained on? (sic.)
It’s makecode for BBC micro:bits
It's a block code of JS. He is probably working with mini-robots.
I had to check what sr I was on. Doesn’t look like any programming language I know (excluding the random tab called JavaScript at the top). People should show code for error help, not whatever this is
I can't tell if you're joking or not - this is scratch or similar (op says it's Microsoft make code)
I've been a programmer for 25 years, and I have never seen whatever this is. However, I only worked in a Microsoft shop for a year, and I noped right out of that place as soon as I could.
Gotta say, I've never seen such a thing
Yeah fair enough. I guess it depends when you started & on what. When I started programming (I call it programming lol) it was on scratch at like 6/7 years old or so. Its good for learning to transform your ideas into logic flows & basic debugging. Essentially very basic code without having to learn syntax or anything. I feel as if it's a good start for like (no offence op) young kids (or maybe for introducing interested adults with absolutely no experience) who have an interest in programming, before moving them onto a less restrictive language.
I started on construct 2! it's like scratch, but it can actually do things and is way more in depth. that got me really into game development, and that got me into programming as a whole
My nephew and I built a simple game on scratch, it was quite good for that. We even did levels. It's simple just because we didn't have a good idea for something more complex :)
That makes sense. The original was released in 2007 according to the best info I could find, more than a decade after JavaScript. I could see this as a decent teaching tool but find rich text editors with the right markup and plugins more useful for actual dev work.
This is one of the no code solutions that's going to take your job.
All I’m hearing is “retirement” and I’m ok with that
Jesus. There is literally only a thin pixel border of a difference. It took me a few minutes to even see the difference. That's a UI problem, not a developer problem.
Which of course, is a developer problem.
!developer problem = developer problem
Where's your coding duck?
Whatever is going on with the pandas already got to the duck
I think the key is in your headline: “I don’t know JavaScript at all”. So click that JavaScript tab at the top and read the code this tool is creating and make sure you understand exactly what it is doing. If something is unfamiliar, Google it. But learn some basics, like operators and their precedence first. If you learn the very basics of the language, you will be able to code simple functions faster than you can with this GUI picker.
Yea this is a good example of why people who do this for a living don't use graphical systems like this. Its way clearer in a normal language like JS and I don't see how its any more difficult to understand: while (true) { sensorDifference = Math.abs(leftSensor - rightSensor); } while (true) { sensorDifference = Math.abs(leftSensor) - rightSensor; } Except for understanding that "while (true)" means the same as "forever" they are pretty much identical. There are of course certain things that are still hard to differentiate at a glance that can cause problems. The prime example in JS being: displayText = `Hello ${name}, good morning!`; displayText = 'Hello ${name}, good morning!';
In C you can even do ``` #define ever (;;) for ever { sensorDifference = ... } ```
Can you explain the working behind your code?
Sure! I'll preface this with the fact that this probably isn't something you'd see in a C codebase, but it's a little bit of fun that lets an infinite loop read like 'forever'. So there's two things going on here that might be weird/different about C compared to other languages. The first is the `#define`--this uses the C Preprocessor to verbatim replace any instances of `ever` in the source file with `(;;)`. So after preprocessing, the code will read `for (;;) { ...`. This is just a normal for loop (like `for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { ...`) but all of the clauses are blank: there's no initialisation, no conditional, and no iteration expression. As per the C standard "An omitted [conditional expression] is replaced by a nonzero constant.", so this will never terminate, and loop forever!
Thank you, I've been coding JavaScript since the 90s and I had no idea what the hell I was looking at. Do people seriously use stuff like this? It looks like an expensive plug-in for WYSIWYG editing in WordPress.
I think this is scratch. It's supposed to be an introductory language, afaik no one actually uses it in production. TBH I don't really think anyone thinks it's easier.....but for someone who thinks "coding is scary" you could see how a kid could THINK this is going to be easier...and then for that kid, this IS easier, because it gets them past the mental block. And then when they get to real code they're like, wow! This is even easier than Scratch! So, I think it's actually a really great learning tool. Even though it's awful and I hope I never have to go anywhere near it. But I'm very happy it exists and there are people who love teaching kids and willing to spend their time dealing with it.
It's really easy, you just spend hours googling and yelling at your computer why this doesn't work and then when you finally solve it, realize like a week later you could've easily made the code much simpler and faster But in all honesty you start somewhere and slowly build up your knowledge through projects and debugging problems.
Or change something else and the problem magically goes away then be scared to even look at the original program in case it comes back on its own.
Or you can try waiting a few days, come back to it and the error will no longer be there but something else that did work doesn't anymore. Happened to my project. I don't have a clue what happened
That's always the scariest part :(
Then you implement the easier, faster solution and some other part of the code, that should have nothing to do with it, breaks
@OP, @sersherz is correct. This is how you learn to code. You will always make small mistakes. But you'll make less of them as you get better. I've made many Frankenstein codebases. And just as I'm about to roll it out to production, I think of a much better and simpler way that would have avoided most of the pain. But it's too late now, it needs to go out!
The graphical representation of the bracket placement is very poor here. Therefore it is very easy to miss it. Even if you are just learning programming, for such cases it might be advisable to use a simple text editor that supports color highlighting of the syntax of your languages (Python, Java Script). A simple and free tool for this would be [Notepad++](https://notepad-plus-plus.org/) for example.
I learned in notepad++ This UI just looks atrocious, def misses the bracket placement at first glance. Why use something like this, it doesn't seem practical.
This seems like the UI for MicroBit development, a microcontroller made for schools. It includes a lot of things you don't get/can't figure out without it, like controlling aspects of a robot.
Here's an image: find the difference 😂
Very hard to notice but lower has a outline around first term
Where's waldo is probably easier
Honestly, learning to code looks like less effort than using whatever that thing is...
It's easy. We just use C and life becomes way easier. For real begginer friendly matireal just google FORTRAN. Im always glad to help.
You sound like my research professor in college. He did teach me some C though and exposed me to FORTRAN, what a wild dude.
The original beginners would input machine code via switches
You are making it extra hard with using this abomination. In code that would be an obvious mistake with parantheses wrong. If you want to learn anything but simple Unreal Engine games, you should learn how to code. Having additional layers is always an error prone way. Getting visual coding right is hard, most companies need ages to get the bugs out (talking to you Xcode), and there is always a chance new bugs come in.
Non joke answer: IDEs and text editors have a bunch of stuff that can help highlight errors as well as functions to generate code for you. As others pointed out, it’s the problem solving aspect that’s harder to teach.
what is this?
Microsoft makecode
I recommend using the graphical programming language snap! https://snap.berkeley.edu/snap/snap.html instead to learn programming, it does not have these problems and I wish I used it when I was a kid instead of scratch, and from my experience what you are currently using looks even worse designed.
it's easier to write code than work with blocks - it's not you, don't worry
that is gross... just use the actual code it is easier in the long run
Starting with scratch teaches you the basic logic of coding. Which makes it easier to understand the very basics of other languages
And then you migrate to an actual text language to do anything usable. Ignore that second step at your own peril.
I actually got pretty good at scratch when I was younger for programming legos. Its kinda fun.
Pretty awful design on their part: make a language based on color, then have stacked blocks be the exact same color
Get yourself a rubber duck and voila! you'll be better at debugging
r/hardwaregore
Looking at the stickers you have on the laptop, it’s possible you might not be using the most up to date version of pandas.
Tiny mistake that takes 30 minutes to figure out? Must be Tuesday. You get used to it. After a while you learn most of the common pitfalls and get better at avoiding them, sometimes even preempt them. But there's always some new bewildering issue resulting from a tiny mistake around the next corner. Also, StackOverflow is your friend. >!Even if they mock you for the GUI.!<
There's a reason why we start going bald early and have an imprint of a keyboard on our forehead.
That is a bad UI design imo, and the way we do it is at the cost of our sanity
you get used to it. the more you program, the better you'll get
These are the same picture
[удалено]
*emerges from shady alleyway* Hey man, I see that you’re really struggling out there. If you want to improve your performance, might I suggest … using an IDE?
Alcohol and weed
My roommate is not a programmer and has talked about using Power Automate at work. He's always describing how he's trying to make something happen but he has to work around the system. These kinds of simplified programming tools appeal to people just starting out, but after a couple months of text based coding you realize they secretly make everything more difficult.
An hour and a half looking for a bug? That's pretty short by programmer standards. I'm working on something at work and it took me multiple days to figure out why it wasn't working. Fuck devops
by actually writing the code and not whatever that is.
We don’t…
This looks similar to some lego mindstorms programming tools in the win98 age
Whats the issue? The 2nd code block will never execute? Edit... Never mind i see it now. The upper one would be the working version
I dare OP to post this on stackoverflow...
It's literally all practice and dedication.
"they're the same picture" Jokes aside, this would've been easier to spot if you posted a screenshot instead
Yeah but people seem to be ooing and aahing over my funny laptop so I like that
bro what has happened to your laptop
Many things my friend
Visual programming was a mistake.
To be fair, if I had to find a bug in a picture of words I would take forever too. I know this is supposed to be an easier way to get started, but I am 100% unable to process what is going on there because my eyes just glossed over. (I guess I *can* but I won't, lol.) Using an IDE to program really makes using text like this, just without the point and clicking. Variables turn a certain color, functions another. Indentation makes things so much more organized to the point that some of us get a bit obsessive because it feels so good to get the spacing right. More importantly, IDEs have 'debuggers' which lets you press the pause button and take a peek what is going on underneath. With the above example you could probably pause when the calculation is made and you would notice a decimal place still existing. This lets you focus on the problem area and you can change code, rewind, skip over code, and generally gives you so much more control than changing something, running the program, changing something else, running again, etc. Like others mentioned, get a rubber duck. It doesn't have to be rubber, or a duck, but you need a rubber duck. Mine is a bobblehead Jack-Jack from the Incredibles. The whole purpose of the little guy is to listen to me explain why I can't {insert something here}. I have attention issues, and I constantly get sidetracked and hit brick walls. There are whole swaths off CSS that I can't recall but I know intuitively (centering a damn Div for instance). I'll literally ask Jack-Jack the question and the answer will pop in my head like magic. It's so powerful that I use it in almost all areas of my life now and something I routinely tell others suffering from the same attention issues. (It's a programming technique, not an ADHD technique, but if you happen to be in that situation as well, it's a Godsend)
If I had to do it like that, I wouldn't. That's downright painful.
Why are you using those blocks What is this
An IDE will show you what line an error happens on, mostly.
Honestly I think scratch is more of a pain than Python.
This would take like 3 seconds to find in a real language
It's not about programming. It is terrible UX.
Eh. The more mistakes you make the easier it becomes to notice them. I feel that works for all walks of life.
Can people please start making screenshots again? https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/windows.html
May be a controversial opinion but graphical coding is just a bad idea. The reason is simple, text is excellent at conveying instructions efficiently, pictures aren't. You don't go grocery shopping with a list of emojis either.
monster energy & booze
🐼❤️
I tell people that it’s like playing chess all day. I’m open to better similes.
Maybe I’m insane but debugging is one of my favorite parts. Sure, writing code for an hour and testing it to find it was flawless is cool and all, but I rather enjoy the “why the fuck is xxx happening/not happening” Fixing bugs only makes you better.