The Mistake Journal

I’ve mentioned “Learn code the Hard Way” before as what’s finally helped me learn how to program, and program well. An interesting concept I’ve grown to love in the book is the mistake journal. It’s only mentioned a couple of times at the beginning, but this is it: Every time you make a mistake write it down.

This goes against conventional knowledge where we’re supposed to forget our mistakes and “Just move on.” But every line of code that I write I notice the benefits of learning this way, especially for programming. Every computer language follows strict syntax, and every program starts as broken. Knowing and keeping track of the mistakes you’ve made in the past (and taking the time and conscious effort to write them down) is great. You build a mental checklist of things that went wrong before to look out for. It’s genius really. I’d highly recommend it to anyone who is programming and struggling to remember syntax/formatting/data types. It’s a great technique.

Well, I’m still programming. The section I’m in right now is memorizing logic statements. Such as: not True = False. It honestly all feels like “All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy” to go through the flash cards. BUT, this doesn’t just feel important, but necessary to memorize since logic and boolean commands/data types are literally everywhere in programming. It is just hard to keep track of everything.

-Since the last post-

Games finished: Bastion, Transistor

Games started: Hyper Light Drifter (I highly recommend)

Games still underway: Undertale