Showerthought: The guy who taught me python in 30 minutes is now a project manager

I met a dude at a coffee shop near my office in Austin like 6 months ago, he was fixing his laptop and I asked for help. He walked me through building a simple calculator in 30 minutes with no judgment, just patience. Has anyone else had a random stranger unlock something for you that a whole course couldn't?

3 comments

3 Comments

rubyk862mo ago

The coffee shop guy probably did more for you than a whole semester of some CS class ever could lol. There's something about having a real person right there who can read your confusion and adjust on the fly that no textbook or online tutorial can match. And that 30 minutes of focused, patient help can give you the confidence to actually go build things on your own and fail at them without feeling stupid. The whole "real skill comes from failing" thing is true but you gotta start somewhere, and a random stranger who makes the first step feel easy is actually huge.

alicecooper2mo ago

Kind of an overreaction to give that much credit to a quick coffee shop lesson. Learning a few syntax basics in 30 minutes is not the same as actually understanding programming logic or problem solving. Real skill comes from building things on your own and failing over and over, not from one guy showing you how to print a string.

gavin_kelly912mo ago

Wait, are you seriously arguing that getting a beginner to actually type their first line of working code isn't a legit part of learning logic? That first win is the whole reason most people don't quit on day one, it's the spark that makes them want to go fail at building their own stuff later. I don't think you're giving enough weight to the moment someone finally sees their code do something, that's when the problem solving actually starts feeling possible.