What did you learn today?

I learned that I need to have a lot more patience when it comes to debugging and figuring out how a library works. I became frustrated when my pair and I could not get animation timings and collisions to match up in our arcade game. I expressed my frustration, and I kept a positive attitude as we tried to debug and pour over documentation.

I felt disappointed that parts of the library were not incorporated into the lecture content, especially since that content was critical to our success in the sprint. While I do think it’s important that we learn to play with libraries and debug on our own (which builds autonomy), I can’t help but think about the hours of wasted time because most of the students in my cohort could not find the information or clear examples of implementation either in the library’s documentation or on the web.

There will likely be many challenges like this on the job. If I were struggling on the job for more than 20 minutes, I would table the problem and bring it up with colleagues in a stand up or ping someone I consider to be more knowledge with the library. I’m finding that Hack Reactor’s curriculum leans towards less hand holding, which is great. I need to re-calibrate my expectations, seek out the answers in documentation, and be more patient as I work toward a solution.

Did you learn anything new about yourself?

The hardest part about coding has been my ability to balance a broken program with my confidence in my own abilities to code. I need to reconcile that broken programs and bugs are inseparable from engineering software. There will always be bugs and optimizations to tackle. I need to be more comfortable with broken programs.

Anything you want to do differently tomorrow?

Have more patient for yourself and your pair when bugs are flying in your face. Debug carefully, and think like a computer. Think dumb. Think by the recipe. Think by the step by step instructions you told the computer to carry out.