Spent a week straight hitting a wall with Python loops until I finally cracked it on Friday night and felt like a genius for 10 minutes before getting stuck on functions

Which side are you on - do you learn better by banging your head against problems alone for days or by giving up after an hour and watching a tutorial first?

3 comments

3 Comments

laura_black3111d agoMost Upvoted

Man, this brings back memories of trying to figure out nested if statements in Excel back in 2015. I sat there for three hours, coffee going cold, absolutely convinced I was just one more bracket away from glory. Turned out I was missing a comma and had to watch a 45 minute YouTube video to realize it. Now I just check the docs after 20 minutes and save myself the headache.

johnflores11d ago

Wait @laura_black31, did you ever realize that Excel actually has a built-in formula evaluator that steps through your logic one piece at a time? I wasted way too many hours staring at brackets before I found that feature and it completely changed how I debug nested IFs. Now I just use IFS() instead of nesting and save myself at least a few migraines per month.

west.anna11d ago

Oh come on @laura_black31, you're telling me you gave up on the old school nesting method? I still swear by it. IFS() is fine if you want everything spoonfed to you, but there's something satisfying about building a 7 layer deep nested IF that works perfectly. Sure I've spent a whole afternoon tracking down one misplaced parenthesis before, but that's how you learn. Plus IFS() can't handle every situation, like when you need to check different columns at each level. Why make your formulas simpler when you can make them look like an eldritch horror that only you understand?