Went to a coffee shop in Portland and saw a kid using a weird way to learn Python

I was at a place called Stumptown Coffee last week and saw a teenager next to me working on a laptop. He had a website open that showed Python code on one side and a simple game on the other. Every time he changed the code, the game changed right away. I asked him about it, and he said it was a site called Replit. He told me he learned more in three hours with that live view than he did in a month of just reading a book. It made me think about how important it is to see your code work as you type it, especially when you're just starting. Has anyone else found a tool that lets you see results right away like that?

4 comments

4 Comments

noahgreen2mo ago

It's like how cooking shows let you see the dish come together step by step.

paul872mo ago

Totally. I always skip to the middle of a recipe video first, to see the texture things should actually have. Reading "cook until golden brown" is useless without a visual.

troychen2mo ago

Right? That's the whole point, @noahgreen. Seeing the process makes it click.

hannahcraig3d ago

Wait, doesn't seeing the results instantly actually hurt your learning? When I first learned to code, I had to write everything out, test it, and then wait to see if it even compiled. That wait time forced me to actually think through my logic instead of just guessing and checking. If that kid had immediate feedback every time, he probably never learned to debug properly or figure out why something broke. Books might be boring but they teach you to read and understand code, not just mess around until something works. Plus real jobs aren't gonna have that kind of instant feedback system set up for you. Maybe that instant win feeling is why so many people give up when things actually get hard.