• andyburke@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    194
    ·
    8 months ago

    I get the joke.

    But if, like me, you actually feel this here’s how I got away from it: make sure you actually understand things.

    Read the error message over and over again, look up the words, understand what it is saying.

    If something isn’t working, start reading the code and making sure you understand what each line is doing.

    It will feel incredibly slow and painful at first. Eventually you will strengthen those.muscles, however, and it’ll become second nature.

    Then you can cut and paste with confidence! 🤣

      • andyburke@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        67
        ·
        8 months ago

        There are still some errors where you just need to know the fix. In that case it’s a baseball bat.

      • snooggums@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        ·
        8 months ago

        Having worked at a copy place for a few years, that one makes me laugh every time.

        For those that don’t know, the error is Print Cartridge needs letter sized paper to be loaded. It is just out of paper.

        • letsgo@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          8 months ago

          You’d often get the error when there was paper in the printer though. Turns out the cause is the slightly different size between US letter page size and A4 page size. Technically the printer’s correct to complain (for the same reason it’d be correct to complain about an A4 sized print while full of A5), but virtually nobody gives a shit about that difference and so the “PC Load Letter” message just translated to “You have to push that stupid button before I’ll do anything because pedantry.”

    • Ilflish@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      8 months ago

      Additionally, don’t copy and paste anything until you understand it. If you don’t understand what code golf is being spewed, don’t take the top answer. If you don’t understand any answer, you probably don’t understand the underlying systems well enough and need to re-evaluate what your asking for.

      • pixelscript@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        8 months ago

        The only difference between a novice and a professional is that a professional checks what they are copying to understand it first before allowing it into their codebase.

        Novices copy code to avoid having to understand it. Professionals copy code to avoid reinventing the wheel.

    • saltesc@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      8 months ago

      ChatGPT is making me better because I’ve learned not to fucking trust it and double check everything it spits out to ensure its actually doing what’s asked of it.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        8 months ago

        I use it to help me lay out pseudo code and check it against what I come up with. It has made the way I structure things (and comment on things) way better.

    • DharkStare@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      8 months ago

      Exactly. I cut and paste all the time but I make sure I know what the code is doing first before I actually add the code.