For many, failure has become deeply engrained in us as something to avoid. And for that reason, as you’re learning to code, you may find that your gut response to bright red error messages or long stack traces is one of fear, anger, or frustration. But we’ll let you in on a little secret—those error messages and stack traces are a gift. (And they’re the key to learning!)
There’s no faster way to learn than to experiment often. Try your code out incrementally as you work on it and see what is or is not working the way you expect! Then put your budding debugging skills to work and figure out what’s going on. If you spend all of your time worrying about making your code perfect before running it, chances are you’ve waited too long. If you don’t believe us, here’s a testimonial on the power of learning from failure from one of the co-founders of Stack Overflow. Every time you encounter an error or failure is another time you have discovered what doesn’t work. That’s valuable information!
Please answer the below prompts in your assignment submission:
- Think of an example of something you have done in your life that you failed at multiple times before you got it—doesn’t have to be coding-related, maybe a sports play, a piece on a musical instrument, or a video game level. How did you keep yourself motivated to keep trying?
- Have you witnessed others learn from failures and then succeed? What strategies have they used?
When you’ve completed your Coding Assignment, and have read and thought about the mindset questions above, submit ALL of your assignments (coding and mindset) using: