DAE remember copy-pasting code from tutorials and calling it done? Took me 3 months to stop

Hannah Craig · 2026-10-25T16:00:05.285656+00:00

I spent my first 3 months learning Python by pasting code from YouTube videos into my editor and running it, and if it worked I moved on. One night my script broke when I renamed a variable from `x` to `user_count`, and I sat there for 45 minutes staring at the screen with no clue why. That was the moment it hit me: I never actually learned what any line did, I just learned to make the error message go away. Now I type everything by hand even when I have the answer right in front of me. Has anyone else caught themselves doing the paste and pray thing early on?

Vivisector

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DAE remember copy-pasting code from tutorials and calling it done? Took me 3 months to stop | Coding For Beginners - Vivisector