10 Newbie Programming Mistakes
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.ค. 2024
- 10 common mistakes I see new programmers make.
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![FizzBuzz - You Suck at Coding [0]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mZWsyUKwTbg/mqdefault.jpg)
![FizzBuzz - You Suck at Coding [0]](/img/tr.png)
#1 Putting everything into a single file
#2 Manually formatting code
#3 Logging to much output
#4 Not reading error messages
#5 Copy and pasting code that you have no idea how it works
#6 Not using the right data structure
#7 Using multiple if statements instead of doing if/else statements
#8 Doing too much pre-processing
#9 Large unorganized commits
#10 Putting secrets or artefacts into GIT
Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we all need
Only a god can do this 🙌
Thank you. Save me 7 mins.
I like how he explains these though
this is the reason i always go to comments. Because of heroes like you. Thank you
Error: ; expected
Me: uses google
Looool
We should create a Vscode extension that will automatically look into google your error output. LOL
use duckduckgo
Also:
- Giving up too early / not being persistent and persevering through frustration.
- Expecting to be good without putting in the work.
- Thinking you know everything / you're the shit.
- Thinking you'll never be able to do something because you're not smart enough.
- Not pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.
- Not asking for help because you're afraid people will judge you.
- Asking other people for help before you even try to do something yourself.
- Not believing in yourself :)
Adithya Reddy yup
Except this is just basic life advice and not specific to programming.
Nice!
i have all of these problems
I think this i can relate to this without the judging part . i dont relate to anything in the video .
I expected "using angular" as one of those
how come?
As a React developer it's in my religion to detest Angular, lolz
If only...
🤣🤣🤣
@@abe10 me too XD. i learned angular before react. and i can say. angular is a mess.
The error message one was a big one for me early on. I found it so intimidating at first, but it is super useful.
David I try to look at the error first, however, 90% of the time it still makes 0 sense to me and goes into the google search box, lol. What gets really frustrating is when you get errors in your console log on the page from chrome extensions & spend an hour trying to figure out where the error is coming from, only to figure out it has nothing to do with your site at all.
Yes it’s true, but sometimes in C and C++ you just get memory allocation errors and such which doesn’t really help you find where you error is
tbh I find the exact opposite waaay more frustrating. Something doesn't work and you have no error: what tf do you do? That's usually a stupid mistakes you can't google (unlike an error) and will spend hours trying to fix.
I'm the same way. As soon as I forced myself to stop relying on tutorials so heavily, I built a silly example app in Django, and I was surprised at how far I could go just by reading and fixing the error message when they came up! :D
It really saves a ton of time to read the messages. Learned after hours on StackOverflow going through a zillion ALMOST the same scenarios that don't solve your issue.
My best advice is: Fail as hard as you can
Try to do things your way, to the extreme. And you will see why you were wrong and learn super fast. Because, if you do things in a particular way because somebody told you so, you will not understand the importance and meaning behind each advice.
Also, try to make your life easier, simple solutions are often the best ones. If something seems more complicated than it needs to be, try to expand your toolset, change the perspective of the problem, divide the problem into sub-problems...
*Manually formatting code* 0:55 - this is so true. Oddly I often see veteran developers do this in video tutorials. It's such a waste of not just time, but your _life._ All the little wasteful decisions you make add up over time! Imagine having spent 100+ hours of your career manually formatting code for no reason. You could have spent that time on better things, such as health, family, friends (or more work 😁).
this is one strong reason i like Xcode, it autoformats lots of things like if statements or switches and is really easy to arrange. I'm just a 1st year though what do i know, but it does seem nice
TechStacker veteran programmers possibly got into this habit from using the older, crapier IDEs or very basic text editors when they were younger.
@@jamesmontis488 Xcode is prob one of the worst IDE's ever made .. well short of the original version of eclipse. I use Vs code almost exclusively now and if apple didn't force me to use xcode to compile apps for iphone i'd drop xocde completely
i format my code to be visibly easier on the eyes when looking through with comment notes to explain sections. many times, the code can get misaligned as things change or are added in time. Some pages get very bad, but when you have a lot of mixed language pages (jsp & php pages for example can mix html and their server side language) having an auto-beutifier doesn’t really work too well for those.
well spending time during work to manually format is not really time wasted for you but rather money wasted by said company. but i doubt they are actually just formatting code. i usually format my code manually as a sort of fidgeting toy while thinking about a problem, or going over expected outputs in my head before i test.
Also get up and go for a walk/eating/hydrating will help a lot with keeping the mind fresh. So many times I've been having a mental block with a problem and then after having a quick walk I end up thinking of a new approach to solve it.
fosho, sometimes when im stuck i go watch anime, come back l8r with a new approach that works. ;) had big struggles with pagination.
#3 should be using the debugger. Just like you use the code formatted you should use a debugger 👍🏼👍🏼
How i can use debugger with React ?
It depends when you really don't know what's going own debugger make sense but when you just wanna see data change/retrieve properly log makes sense.
@@lukaskovar6921 checkout code.visualstudio.com/docs/nodejs/reactjs-tutorial#_debugging-react
I’ve been programming for over 15 years and still have yet to figure out how to properly utilize a debugger. Almost all the code I’ve written has been in JS/CSS/HTML/ & JAVA(JSP). Java debugging is a thing, but it’s not so much for a Spring 1 web app that requires a special database connection to our backend erp for any testing to take place. This has led a lot of our debugging to be done post dev deployment through VSTS pipelines & placing console logs in points of interest during testing - whether in the java or js files.
Holy crap! I was about to say that. 😐
Love your videos. Thanks for doing this.
Thanks for the video!
Ben: "Don't put large commits"
Taylor Swift: ... You belong with me...
Amazing tips Ben!!!
I took part on this beginner react native course for fun. The instructor tried to help one person who could not boot up the react native at all.
It literally said "run npm install" because during initialization of expo create app the person had problems with internet connection and npm install could not been run succesfully.
I pointed this out and said you should run npm install. The instructor was really obnoxious and said you don't have because it's running automatically. I repeated that it says in the error message, please run npm install. Then finally the guy runned npm install and it would, of course. The instructor said well, I guess it fixed the issue and moved on to teach people react-native..
Solid points, thanks!
5:07 "Basically, be lazy." Oh? Okay sounds good to me.
being truly lazy takes a lot of work
Dude, the reason I started programming is because I'm lazy as fuck. I had a job where I moved into a role where there was insane amounts of copy/paste repetition. The people I was working with just accepted it. I said fuck that and hacked up a template using javascript and a few regexes to fill the copy/paste for me. Fast forward a year or so and I was pretty much a full time programmer. Since then, I haven't looked back.
What he really meant, I guess, was "make your program lazy".
these were honestly the best tips I've ever heard, not too generic, not too specific. 👍
same!
Thank you very much for this video. I did it all of it. It's very helpful.
Re: Logging too much output. I _highly_ recommend getting used to using debuggers and breakpoints. It can take some time to figure out the initial setup, but it makes fixing bugs so much easier :D
I think I agree, I'm a newbie but one good video on breakpoints and debugger tools and some code later I became addicted to them
@@floppy-disko2378 could you link to that video if possible?
@@orangeVSappel How to debug c++ in Visual Studio, this video is in a really good series from The Cherno
@@floppy-disko2378 Thanks, I'll check it out
Meh I'm not a big debugger guy, makes you reliant on a specific env. It's a pain to have to hook up all your docker containers to a debugger for instance.
These are actually useful, thanks!
Awesome tips!
You actually rarely need if-else. Worked on a new project for a year with 3 people. We had half a dozen if-else by the end. Guard clauses and polymorphism are your friend.
Read error messages
Best tip, by far 🔥
Zack Krida and limiting what you send to the error log. I had an issue arise the other day where services were interrupted. the logs were so jammed full of debug crap I couldn’t find the error msg easily, so i had to disable debug logging and clear the logs to make the error msg more distinguishable. was a super easy fix after i did that.
Again great videos
my favourite is the last one using environment variables for putting secrets or artefacts into GIT. thanks brother
You are a great person for helping us on learning programming. Thank you
So glad I found this channel thanks buddy.
welcome :)
Hey Ben, can you recommend a good resource to learn data structures and algorithms? I don’t have a CS background, ouch.
Mistakes are faster to learn and fix. Thanks for sharing.
That's some advanced green screen usage, a different environment every time!
Is it really a green screen?
@@thedeveloper4207 No, it was sarcasm.
@@mabdullahsari lol 😂... You had me with that 😂
I like so much your videos bro, when you talk I can understand you, because I speak Spanish and it's a little tricky to me understand English well 😁 thanks!
Lol mine is worse
I spend hours debugging why the function doesn't work until I realize I haven't called it
Man, i felt like you were talking to me lol, cause I just created a React Native application and using the API key inside the code, without using the environment variables. Good advice, Thanks!
Wait what? I'm currently using API keys inside code 😒 What is environment variables?
In a React Native App
@@mulwelimushiana8388 Hi man, environment variable is a variable that you can create in a .env file created in your project and assign a value to it, it is usually not added to version control, or you can add(to version control) only as an example with the variable names but without the values, like create another .env file but named .env.example, because it is not a good practice to leave your credentials like an API key inside of your code. And there is a way to read the values of the variable in your code, depending on the programming language it can be different, I recommend you to do a research of how to do it in JavaScript, since you are using react native
@@mateuscosta5359 wow Thanks a lot man. I'll look at it.
6 months into my first developer job and I think I have made all of thesemistakes and learnt from them ofcourse!
hello Awad from your perspective what is the best platform to learn how to code
Why am I watching this, I can’t even program
I'd recommend you get started
I agree with Jawad, now he might change his username and if someone sees my comment after he does that, The Won’t Know Who I’m Talking To. So to that person that doesn’t exist yet, Jawad is the comment above me ^^^.
@@cyberwebdev lol, I'm never changing my username
Ok, Deafult Pfp in a Green Background, now he might change his pfp, and if someone sees this after he does, they wont know who I’m talking to... and think I’m lonely and is talking to no one. So to that person that doesn’t exist yet, hello, I hope Covid has stoped, and BLM is true in the future... also back to topic, that guy is the comment above me. edit:^^^
@@cyberwebdev dw, I'm lonely too, no one to talk to
Putting everything into a single file
MAN I FELT THAT TO MY SOUL 😂😂😂😭😭😭
Commiting is the one for me, I tend to forget to commit after I did something especially if I'm trying to solve a problem.
I do too and my solution has become to make 3/4 commits at the same time. All git clients let you choose what files (and even lines) you want to put into a commit.
Well this just made me realize my programming class is good because they told us ctrlA followed by ctrl I to automatically format code is eclipse along with using if else statements rather than using only if statements
No. 0 noob error, not watching all informational TH-cam videos at 2x spped so you can learn twice as fast
The last three mistakes are super common among most students. Definitely good advice!
I was working on fixing unit tests failing and I went too far in the class tested and did an undo changes. Little did I know I reset the logic I rewrote for another method that was completely fine.
Can I get an F?
When I made large changes, I use „git add -p“ to split them into smaller commits.
Good luck reading those C++ error messages XD
Ruben Adema or C, they are both pretty confusing and meaningful at the same time
They r so confusing until u find the problem and u realize they were saying it so plainly before
@@escapechar laugh in segmentation fault
I've never had a problem with C++ error messages, they're really not bad
what arcane language are they written in fr
Gosh, I've lived through all of these. It's almost kind of nostalgic.
🤧yup
6:15 For #10 something I like to do when working on production code is I'll have secrets loaded through environment variables like you suggest and I'll also have the project configured for docker-compose. The docker-compose.yml will be configured for running the code in debug mode and will live in git and I have any secrets or production configuration loaded through docker-compose.override.yml, which will be in the .gitignore. This nicely isolates any secrets to just the override file and any safe configuration can be shared with git.
If you can't dockerize your project, you can also do similar things with .env files but I find them to be more unwieldy, personally.
Read the air message 😂
Thank you for this, I just started coding and this gives me an idea of how good I am. Which is actually difficult when self educating
Another one: Learn keyboard shortcuts that can make your life easier. Like in VS or VS Code. Shift + Delete will cut an entire line. Ctrl + Backspace will delete an entire word. Alt + Arrow Key will move a selected line. In windows, the Windows Key + V will allow you paste the last few things you've copied. That way, you can go ahead and copy all of the values you'll need and then paste all at once. These are all things that will prevent the flow of thought from being interrupted by the developer having to do manual word processing. There are so many TH-cam tutorials where they spend a crazy amount of time moving text around. Work smarter not harder.
Amazing feedback.
this is a great example of a video that looks a million times better not in fullscreen which is nice
I tried running a few while loop but it freezes after 2-7 loops :/
As a new programmer I have problems with #6, #8 and #9. Data structures is very important to inderstand. Good point with preprocess as due to lack of experience I tought that it's nice to have everything on the top. With commits.. I know that I should do smaller commit's but something going wrong somethimes.. again due to lack of experience I start to change one thing, after I have to change another and after I already should commit huge amount of work.. it's like a snowball)) insteed I should be able to break the big thing on smaller parts. Well we all learning! Thank you for the video
If it helps, commit small and often then push once you are happy that you have done the main task.
Don’t feel you have to push a single commit at a time.
Or if it is a small change just add it in the message.
Lol I had a boss (the owner of the company) who was very guilty of the first one. Every time I would point it out in code review he'd just ignore me. When I left the company there was a lot of barely maintainable code.
What I was expecting: 10 Newbie Programming Mistakes
What I got: 10 daily habits I have that are wrong
I'm a total noob and i've never needed to copy and paste error codes into google. I usually just find the line the error is on (my visual studio 2017 shows me what line) and then I can usually instantly figure it out based on what is there.
Trying to work on #9, myself 😅
wow great vid quality
I completely disagree with the elseif one, I see a ton of co-workers introducing complex nested branching when all they needed was some early return conditions
Why not just use a switch case then.
@@Maniacsurvivor no advantage using if/else and switch statements over eachother. just comes down to style preference. The nice thing about if/else is the new scope, while in switch case you have the same scope in all statements.
Have worked now as a programmer for almost 2 years and was just curious if I am doing something mentioned here.
I'm guilty though of console.logging, because I feel like the debugger in VS code for React is really hard to follow, unlike VS when debugging something in C#. I do find bugs fairly effeciently though I would still say but I could def improve on that one hehe.
Lucked out, yes 😅 I was sure you would mention not using automated tests.
using map instead of looping over lists.. that was interesting! Thanks
What drawback using lists?
I've been programming for years now and sometimes I still fall victim to number 9-Large unorganized commits. It tends to be for me at least that the more tired I get (once your 10-12 hours in) I get alot more likely to do this.
One "mistake" I see a lot of people do is adding strings together with +, especially when printing things out.
Using String.format(), std::format() or whatever your language provides is generally much easier to work with once you learn how it works.
For debug use a debugger, do not print, do it only for programs that require logging.
What is an Air Message?
Bro, my commits are YUGE. We’re talking going from 1.0.0 to 2.3.0. Thank you for calling me out, definitely going to work on that.
I would also recommend as you’re developing to keep official API documents up in the browser for quick reference, especially if you’re new to a language. Really helps show you what tools are available to get the job done.
If you're working on a big application and somewhere in the world someone finds a bug in it, you can checkout the commits to find which one introduced it. Obviously at that time you'd like a small atomic change with a reason rather than a huge wall of changes.
+1 for not reading error messages. I've seen this before with my colleagues. They come to me with the error and I literally take a screenshot of the error message and send it back to them saying that is what they need to do to fix it.
I'm guilty of #3, but when you don't know where the error is it helps, I often look at the variables every loop. I kind of manually set break points with while(getc(stdin) != '
'); statements.
Also, #6, ..... I'll look into that
#9, what's a commit?
I remember when I first started unity, I would have huge update functions which is just cluttered and I would waste so much time in debugging
I feel what you missed was that putting multiple if statements instead of if else can result into logical errors in your code
I did that too much logging out a lot of time but that always goes like a print statement in inner loop than outer and so on....
And as you said people should read error messages, I think error messages are programmers and debugging team's best friend
These points are important. I used some of the points after seeing this video.
I actually dont agree with the if statement part. I think it is a good practice to do if statement which are not nested, without else and for example terminates the function run with a return instead of doing these insane nested if statement stuff which is nobody able to read
The reason why some ppl do the preprocessing upfront is because they were taught in school thats how you write C code. But that's only half the truth. Unless you're developing for some reason obscure system like some corporate UNIX system, the compiler will have support for c99+ and will allow you to declare variables in the middle of your functions. I really agree though, having variables declared in the beginning just pollutes your state and makes your mind have to juggle around more unnecessary variables
I don't even know where to start, but I got to start somewhere.
First off, I don't understand why so many newbies give advice to other newbies. I know, you want to help, the thing is, the issues you raise are real, they should be addressed, BUT the solutions you provide are incomplete.
#3 "logging too much output" -- you want to do structured logging, meaning with information like: loglevel, subsystem, component/package/class, method, line, and then you want to filter in a targeted manner. This way, you can also configure the logging for production.
#7 "Using multiple if statements instead of doing if/else statements" the situation which you describe sounds like not using polymorphism. When you have a mutually exclusive list of ifs, you want to put each block of the if inside a class, using a common contract, and inject it from outside
#9 "Large unorganized commits" -- here you're not offering a solution. To make good commits, do like this: before starting to work, think what you're going to do to the code. THAT is your commit message. Keep it in the back of your mind. Now start working towards that goal ONLY.
Want to do some "boyscout rule"? Sure, do it, but do it only in isolated parts of the code (which will be clear git hunks -- think of git add -pv -- not amalgamated between modified lines of code touched by your initial "commit message"). As you modify your code, you get ideas for refactorings? Sure, do them, but not in the code YET, do them just as commit messages, and put those commit messages in your mental queue of commit messages. In this queue, you'll have at the top your initial commit message, and then the next commit messages - already prepared in your mind, they "just" need to be put into practice, one by one.
I'm a CTO at a smaller company, 15 years of experience, hope these refined advices help.
That thumbnail got me
I feel proud of myself because I learnt all of these lessons myself and improved 👌
Just commited my code after watching this so that it won't get bigger than it already is xD
I just started to self taught me on html. I do all of these mistakes.
What do i do lol
When it comes to naming
* not pluralizing (”item” could be an array)
* unclear booleans function names like ”checkValid” (..when ”isValid” would be better). Possibly cause they are scared to death of fn names sounding similar to property names
* no instinct for succinct names. like arrayOfNamesWhicyHaveBeenFiltered instead of just filteredNames
* no instinct when a variable name could help to clarify or when it’s unneceessary, they just follow ”patterns”. If someone stored a complex regex into an ”isValidEmailRegex” var they can happily remove that variable name if they’ve heard someone saying not to use variables unnecessesarily in the codebase. Or go the opposite route and write ”isXtrue = x==true” if they hear someone saying variablenames can be used as clarification.
maan, your voice is most satisfying.
Is that You Belong With Me playing in the background?
I don't know what it is, but I don't like auto-formatting at all. And I really don't like it when people use tabs equivalent to 2 spaces instead of 4. But I feel like I am the only one :/
I was thinking more like, loops should always start the index at 1, not 0.
Or when you can't copy paste files between environments, just encode them to base64, copy the text and decode it in the new environment.
turned on captions,it showed "air massage"
Good ones ✌
Number 3, I would say use debugger and avoid print statements especially if it’s production code.
i think sometimes a debugger is overkill. print can be nice for debugging
Oompa Loompa Yes it can be. I don’t think it’s good practice though, in case it slips into production and you end up printing something you shouldn’t be. I admit though that I’ve done it myself, for the exact reason you mention, especially if it’s that bloody remote debugger.
The error message one gave me data merge flashbacks...
1:25 It is also a good idea to label your logs.
4:10 flashbacks of yandere simulator code,
Yeah, whenever I see an error, I immediately look at the line number and head back to my code. But to be honest, that's fine for me because I can normally identify the mistake. If not, I'll actually read the error message, or in more detail.
1:40 But stay away from print debugging, it can clutter your code very easily. Using lodging module with Python and similar alternatives for other languages
#3 Logging too much output - still a noob mistake
use the debugger instead
If only there was a good php debugger
My biggest mistake is not doing something because I can't find the best way to do it, or trying to optimize as I go. It's best to first make it work, then go through it and make it work well and fast (optimize)
I very often do huge commits... It's a tough habit to get out of
My biggest newbie move recently was calling a function training a neural net which returned the net but instead of saving it to a variable I just called the function... That is what I would call pain...
How do you get the idea of changing the code on an error without reading the error?? XD
Yeah, I'm guilty of some of these out if laziness, but only slightly. The only one I'm egregiously bad with is large commits.
I setup auto format after watching this. You’re right, I waste a lot of time. Thank you.
k, so I was looking for resources or whatever term you use for it if your trying to learn something and I stumbled across this guy and didn't notice I'm halfway end of the vid bcs he's so cute
ikr?!