Previous Lesson: Lesson 1. Computers and Its Generation
These are some of the important rules and reminders for all programmers. These are significant notes about pace, reading and writing, attention to details, copy-pasting, saving our code, and misconceptions in programming.
Pace
Remember: quality is better than quantity. No one could possibly remember everything or at least seventy-five percent of a thousand-paged book when read only in a day. Same applies with learning code–we need time, patience, and hard work to build skills on programming.
Reading and Writing
Another one for our rules and reminders for programmers is of course, one should know how to read and write when learning how to code–reading is one of the most important things needed in order to learn how to program and in order to type in the letters and other characters on our keyboard. And, reading is also important so that you can read what I am saying here right now.
Attention to Detail
The one skill that separates bad programmers from good programmers is attention to detail. In fact, it’s what separates the good from the bad in any profession. You must pay attention to the tiniest details of your work or you will miss important elements of what you create. In programming, this is how you end up with “bugs” and difficult-to-use systems.
Do Not Copy-Paste
That copy paste keys are so seductive. You can use copy-paste on other things but in coding, you must type everything manually. If you want to copy a code from the Internet, type it manually. This is important to train your hands, your brain, and your mind in how to read, write, and see code. If you copy-paste, you are cheating yourself from learning.
‘Ctrl + S’ or ‘Command + S’
You might have already seen this line somewhere: “Geeks will Ctrl + S the world.” So what do you think does that mean? Right, to save the world. While working and coding, always press that Ctrl + S whenever you stop even for a while and make it a habit.
It will save your code in case your computer suddenly turns off or shut down for several reasons like black-out, blue screen of death, or simply because your device’s battery got drained. Trust me, all of these happened to me and I regret it not pressing that ‘save’ button.
Misconception in programming
When you learn how to code/program, you’ll find so many specific codes and commands that you’ll need to exactly type in your editor to get your code working. But beyond that, there’s a big misconception that people say about programming.
Misconception: “As a programmer, you need to memorize everything because coding/programming is just a hundred percent typing, typing, typing until you could make something, and then boom! That’s it. You’ve just created your own big project.”
I’m gonna tell you that that’s not true. Yes, you have to make your code exactly right and true, but you don’t have to memorize everything. That’s why Google there for us. We can always search for the things that we need to know in coding. The courses Learn Python and Learn Django are some of the great tools that we can use.
So never have a pressure like thinking: “Oh how am I going to remember how to write like, you know, the ‘django-admin’ blah, blah, blah?” NO! Whenever you got a question, whenever you forgot how to do something in programming, Google it, come back to this course.
Conclusion: Whatever it is you gotta do, just remember that there is no requirement at all to have all these stuff in coding memorized. It is counterproductive for everyone to memorize everything because what’s the point of having everything memorized but you’re not learning new things?
Programming is all about creating new things with having just a few things in your mind to get things runnin’. This is one of the important rules and reminders for all programmers.
Got Questions?
The Comments section is always open for everybody. Don’t worry and DON’T BE SHY. There is no such thing as a dumb question. Trust me, all programmers ask a lot of questions even though they are really experienced. I will do my best to answer your questions. We’ll go through this together. But if I don’t know the answer for it, I’ll be asking my dad.
He’s a very experienced programmer. But he told me that he is still learning a lot of new things in programming. So don’t worry. When someone bullies your question, I will spam it. We are here to learn and discuss everything. Let’s learn Python and Django!
If you want to learn or review the lessons in Python, this starting lesson is for you:
Python Lesson 3: Setting Up Our Computer
But if you’ve already studied Python, you can start with this lesson on Django: