So, one of the things that is so difficult about programming is that it is pretty unforgiving. It is a detail oriented business and each letter, piece of punctuation, symbol, or variable must be noted exactly right. 99% in many cases means that you can more than get by, you have done a wonderful job! 1% wrong on most programs and it will not function.
In Pine's Learn to Program I have decided to actually type all of the answers into the editor for practice for this very reason. Often times I have found myself sure I more or less understand what's going on, but when I do it myself it will not function. This is the 99% rule in action. Maybe you missed a colon, quote, or put one equal sign instead of 2 (my personal favorite!). These mistakes make the program fail to run and can really test your sanity. This afternoon I stared at my program and the one listed in Pine's book for 20 minutes sure he must have written the book wrong (even though I knew this could not be possible). Finally, I found I left out one equal sign. Hundreds of characters right, one wrong and kaput.
This is enough to drive the beginning programmer crazy because just when you think you've got it...you don't. If you have had this experience know that at least one other person shares it with you.
Total hours into Programming: 46 (2 so far today)
Chris Pine's Learn to Program (Finished with Chapter 7)
Progress on Hartl's Tutorial Ready to start Chapter 3!
Code Academy Points: 473
Code Academy Badges: 52
Code Academy Skills Finished: 2 (Make a Website, Ruby)
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