Shoutout to the free Python workshop at the Denver library last month

I went to a beginner coding session there and the teacher, Sarah, made us start by just printing 'Hello World' for a solid 20 minutes. It felt silly, but she said getting the setup right is half the battle for new people. Has anyone else found that just getting your editor and a simple script to run is the hardest first step?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_troy1mo ago

Getting the setup right" reminds me of my printer's eternal driver issues.

paul3461mo ago

Actually, that setup step is way more than half the battle for a total beginner. It's the whole war. Most people quit right there because a missing semicolon or a bad path feels like a brick wall. Sarah was smart to drill that. The "Hello World" isn't about the code, it's about proving your whole machine works. Printers are a nightmare, but at least they don't care about your indentations.

rodriguez.diana1mo ago

Sarah's right about the setup being the whole war. I taught a workshop once where we spent 90 minutes just getting Python installed and running a script. Half the room hit a path error. That feeling of hitting a wall over something that seems small is real, and it's why people walk away. We treat it like a small step, but it's the biggest test of whether someone will stick with it.