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Comment by baash05 | Hacker News Reader

I never teach people to code. I ask them what they want to build, and then we work to building that. People don't need to be patient. Beyond assignment, if, for and while, just make sure they use good variable names and function names. Code reviews take care of the rest.

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If learning your first programming language doesn't require patience, I don't know what the word means.

I've never met anyone who wasn't frustrated for at least the first few months trying to get even basic programs working. The syntax is orders of magnitude less tolerance of mistakes than any other subject.

Not sure a doctor would agree with that last sentence. Or even a carpenter really. Cut that bit off at the wrong angle and it's not something you're coming back from. Cut a line of code wrong and the test fails, and you try again, and again and again.

I should say.. they don't need to be more patient than most other trades. To get good they need to practice and learn.

What I do think coders need to know is that they are building on quick sand. That bit is the only thing I think we do that other trades don't. We can never rest, because as soon as we stop for a breath we start to sink and fall behind.

I’m not talking about the importance of mistakes or likelihood of making them. I’m talking about the literal binary nature of the (syntax) mistakes. From day 1 to day infinity a single misplaced character is more likely than not completely unacceptable.

But for any physical skill you have some notion of tolerance. Whether that’s millimeter or micrograms things aren’t absolute in the way they are with programming.

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