What’s the biggest mistake beginners make while learning Python?
Posted by livewire_trichy@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 26 comments
I’ve noticed many beginners start learning Python because of AI, Data Science, and automation trends, but a lot of them lose motivation after a few weeks.
Some focus only on watching tutorials without practicing, while others try to learn too many technologies at the same time.
From your experience, what do you think is the biggest mistake beginners make while learning Python?
Would also like to know what helped you improve faster while learning programming.
omnisoftbrian@reddit
biggest mistake? too many beginners try to over-engineer their first projects stop planning a complex app with microservices or data pipelines—focus on writing simple, working scripts first nothing gets you motivated like seeing your code actually do something.
Argadnel-Euphemus@reddit
That they're supposed to remember how to do everything. Even programmers of 10+ or 20+ years still need to look up documentation, sometimes even for the most basic stuff, because people forget and you're fighting an impossible battle if you try to remember everything. As long as you understand the basic concepts and how to go about solving them you will be fine.
Atlamillias@reddit
I always forget method names because of how much they vary between languages. I frequently type
[]., etc. in my IDE so I can read the autocompletions lol.knellotron@reddit
I've been using Python since v2.5 and last week I still had to double check the difference between a tuple and a set.
Slight-Specialist-50@reddit
I've been learning python as a first language, and when practicing on codingame I'm constantly looking up how to do things I've done before. Good to know I'm not alone.
Argadnel-Euphemus@reddit
Yeah no worries. You just need to take on the mindset that the process is just as important (if not more important) than the result, its okay to fail and its okay to forget, just enjoy coding.
Informal-Reveal-8756@reddit
Not the answer I would have given a couple years ago, but nowadays, sadly, probably excessive reliance on AI.
nando1969@reddit
Not writing enough programs of their own before moving to the next chapter.
Informal-Reveal-8756@reddit
Basically this. You need to write your own code, badly, a lot, before you learn how to do something. Thinking "oh, I get the theory" and moving on to a new thing without practicing it yourself is no good.
BranchLatter4294@reddit
Watching videos instead of coding.
desrtfx@reddit
Asking "what's the biggest mistake"^/s
Jokes aside, it really is a bad question. Everybody needs to make their own mistakes and learn from them. Directly avoiding mistakes is avoiding learning from them and detrimental to learning.
Other mistakes are:
SharkSymphony@reddit
Yup, this one pretty much sums it up for me.
unnamed_one1@reddit
I'd say the three biggest mistakes are: - getting stuck in tutorial hell - not using the debugger - using AI to write code
IMO the most important thing is, that you actually write the code yourself and not just watch others (including AI) do it. You wouldn't just watch others doing workouts and expect your muscles to grow, same goes for coding. You need to get your hands dirty to learn.
Knowing how to debug your code with a debugger is essential to understanding why errors happen and
print()statements just won't take you very far and also clutter your code.SLOOT_APOCALYPSE@reddit
double tapping the space bar because spaces count. major flaw imo
EliSka93@reddit
That's the downside of using whitespace for scoping instead of brackets.
chaoticbean14@reddit
I'll tell you where you can put those brackets...
After 5+ years of bracket hell... I was actually very happy to move to Python.
Yes, very rarely I wish spacing didn't matter - but that's only when I'm in a huge hurry and want to produce absolute slop. Which I did, when I had brackets. When using Python? It's clean(er) almost always.
So as much as I want to agree, I simply can't. Brackets have their place I guess - but I've grown to hate them!
Terrible_Mix5187@reddit
I am working through the python course at freecodecamp. I had made it to the end of one of the big assignments. Code checker kept on saying I messed up even though I verified that the results were identical to the requested output. Spent hours trying to debug.
Turns out that the problem was an extra whitespace character
' 'in one line.Outside_Complaint755@reddit
If it's an autograder catching an extra space in output, then that will get flagged in any language, not just Python.
Spaces in Python really only cijnt for block indentation. If you want a language where spaces are really important, try MUMPS
Terrible_Mix5187@reddit
Where were you when I was banging my head against the wall 😉
Any-Cardiologist1641@reddit
Most of the students/learner try to mug up the things by watching tutorials instead of applying on projects.
Sweet_Witch@reddit
If they lose motivation then they were not that strongly motivated in the first place. Perhaps it is good that they tried, found it is not for them and moved on to something else that motivates and interest them more?
Curiosity and wanting to know how it works. Being able to do research and find learning materials on my own as a result. If someone lacks motivation and curiosity for what they are doing, then no amount of magical tricks is going to help.
HappyFruitTree@reddit
I think this is a bit unfair.
The teacher and learning material can make a lot of difference. Learning programming on your own is much harder (and lonely) than if you for example are studying it properly at a university.
Beginners want to see results quickly. They don't want to spend weeks or months before getting something done. It's always like that. This changes with time as they gain more experience they'll also get more realistic expectations.
Sweet_Witch@reddit
To be honest, I think it tells you a lot if you want to make an effort on your own to look for materials to read more about what interest you. I thought about it in the past and realized that if something truly interest me, I have no problem to spend time to look for materials about the subject that caught my interest. But if I were not doing it, it was a strong signal that the subject doesn't interest me. Such subjects and potential field of study I have dropped, it was just a matter of time.
Intelligent-Pay-9377@reddit
What helped me improve was picking projects I was excited about and working on that. It's really that simple. The more you bang your head on the keyboard (not literally) and figure things out the faster you'll progress.
HappyFruitTree@reddit
Another common mistake that new programmers do (not just people who learn Python) is that they try do projects that are too big.
As a beginner, it's easy to underestimate the time needed to complete a project. Realizing that something you thought will take a week to complete will probably take you months or years is not very encouraging.
Beginners are not used to work with large code bases so it's likely that the code turns into a mess that is really hard to work with. Good programmers are not good because they are good at dealing with that mess but because they know how to avoid it.
It's better to start with very small projects and then work your way up to larger and larger projects. It's not wrong to have dreams, but at least try to keep the core functionality that needs to implemented in order for the project to be successful and keep the rest as optional features that you could add later if you still feel like it.
HappyFruitTree@reddit
I think this is a common mistake among beginners learning any programming language.
To become good at writing code you need to practice writing a lot of code. It's no different than someone who wants to become good at writing novels, it's not enough for them to just read a lot. And for people who want to become good at math, it's not enough to just watch other people solve the math problems.
In the beginning it's important that you practice everything that you learn, otherwise the step will be too big (and you will just "blank") the day you actually try to write some code yourself.
Video tutorials are often not great. Often they just ramble a lot of feature without teaching them properly. Mistakes are often not corrected (because it's hard to correct a video). It's also harder to go back and look things up in a video. Written sources can often be better.