027 - The Painful Parts of Programming

1 Aug, 2017

FRUSTRATION!!! This week I share the painful experience of getting stuck while coding. And some helpful tips to get through it!

I’m in the process of building my first web app from scratch and adding the login feature proved to be massively difficult. No matter what I tried, no matter what tips I got, I just couldn’t get it working. While it’s not the first time I got stuck coding something, it definitely held out the longest, leading me to bang my head against more walls than I’d like.

But in the end I found some tips to get through it (be sure to check out last week's episode which inspired all of them!:

  1. Don’t get frustrated!
  2. If you do, step away from the code and refresh your brain.
  3. Break the problem into smaller pieces: take the part you can’t solve and write it as standalone code. Then it should be easier to fit into the bigger piece.
  4. If you use other people’s code, be sure to take the time to learn how it works, otherwise it’s just a band-aid.
  5. When things get tough, just stick with it…
  6. …but ask for help (ideally well before getting worked up to tears)!

Thoughts on this episode? Leave a comment below or tweet me @startovercoder.