Back when coding meant flipping through a thick manual

I started with C programming using a textbook from the library. Today, you can run code right in your browser with no setup. For a new coder, is it better to learn the old way or use modern tools?

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3 Comments

the_jason7mo ago

Learned C from a textbook that smelled like basement and had coffee stains on the pointers chapter. I must have rewritten the same broken loop for a week because the index was off by one. Maybe it's just me, but all that manual flipping taught me how to fail gracefully, which is its own kind of skill. Modern tools are great, but they won't give you that special kind of frustration.

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dakota_murphy906mo ago

My first programming job had me fixing off by one errors in old Perl scripts for three months straight. That kind of frustration just taught me to hate debugging, not some deeper skill. Getting instant feedback from a linter today lets me learn from the mistake and move on faster.

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dakota_taylor397mo ago

Is failing gracefully really that deep? Jason's basement textbook struggle sounds rough but modern tools just fix the problem faster.

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