Shoutout to my cousin's kid who called my code 'boring'

I was showing my first Python script to my 10-year-old niece, and she just stared at it for a second and said, 'It's just words... where's the game?'... I'd been so focused on getting the syntax right that I forgot to make anything fun. That one comment made me drop my tutorial and start building a simple number guessing game instead. Has anyone else had a kid totally reframe why they're learning to code?

3 comments

3 Comments

lily_gibson131mo ago

Hold up, is it really that deep though? Kids say stuff like that all the time, they don't always get what they're looking at. My nephew once called my guitar playing "okay" and I didn't drop my entire hobby over it. Sometimes a tutorial is just a tutorial, it's not supposed to be flashy. Getting the syntax right is a huge step, that's the boring ground work that makes the fun stuff possible later. Not everything has to be a game to be worth learning.

ray_patel273mo ago

Honestly, that kid just gave you the best programming advice you'll ever get. We all start out making boring lists and calculations, forgetting that code is supposed to do something you can actually see. When are we gonna learn that if it's not fun to use, why would it be fun to write? My first project was a text-based calculator and even I wanted to fall asleep.

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jordan3053mo ago

Exactly. Build something you'd actually want to use yourself. Makes the grind way easier.