24 JULY 2018 / INSIGHTS

Thinking About Errors in Your

Code Differently
Learning to code can be a frustrating endeavor because you are
destined to encounter many red errors along the way. What makes a
programmer successful isn't avoiding errors—no programmer can
avoid them. Great programmers understand that errors are part of
the process, and they know how to find the solution to each while
learning something new from them. In this article, we'll teach you
how to think about errors in your code a little differently.

Red is a beautiful color

We're conditioned by society to be afraid of the color red. STOP,
DANGER, DO NOT ENTER, all loud red signs telling us to turn
around, don't go in there, you'll get hurt. It's so easy to carry this
mindset over to coding that many new programmers get discouraged
and distraught over the red error messages their compilers spit out.

They think, "oh no, I've done something wrong again" and "clearly
coding isn't for me, even the computer knows," but that's the wrong
way of thinking! Every programmer, even the most experienced ones,
encounter errors all the time. In fact, believe it or not, experienced
programmers likely encounter far more errors than a new
programmer ever will.

Errors in your code mean you're trying to

do something cool
Consider the totally made up graph below:
As your code increases in complexity, the number of errors you'll
encounter rises at a similar rate. An error means you're trying to do
something that might be a little complicated (or very complicated),
and it doesn't quite work yet, but by no means is it a sign that you
should stop trying!

In fact, there are entire engineering roles built around finding and
fixing errors. A site reliability engineer finds and report errors in web
platforms. A test engineer builds automated tests to discover errors
in software and make sure that it meets a companies standards.

Almost all major technology companies offer cash rewards to intrepid

programmers who can find bugs in their software. Google, Amazon,
and Microsoft all encourage users to seek out bugs and report any
they might find.

Why do they do this? Why would a major technology company want

its users to try to break their software? Because they understand that
encountering bugs is one of the best ways you can improve your
code. Bugs show you where the weaknesses are, make you really
consider what you want your code to accomplish, and then guide you
towards building more reliable and secure products.

Tools to tackle code errors

Okay okay okay I get it, I shouldn't be scared of my error
 messages, but just changing how I feel doesn't help me get
past this error message right in front of me! What should I do!

You're right, imaginary person in my head, celebrating an error isn't

going to make that error go away. You have to be able to bust
through the error to really start improving. Let's outline a couple of
steps to take to solve any compiler errors—errors that print out to the
console as you code—that you might encounter.

The following steps will guide you through a standard error that
might get thrown your way as you learn to code, and they'll show you
that errors aren't as scary as they seem. In fact, the steps are mostly
a combination of reading the error carefully or copy pasting it in a
Google search!

Face errors in your code fearlessly

Program with Python

1. Dissect the error.

When an error first appears on your screen, find the line in the error
specific to your code. Lot's of error messages have tons of boilerplate
details that aren’t important to the actual error. You want to find that
part in the error that gives you insight as to what happened.

I ran into an error recently when I was trying to create a program that
could store a list of grades for a bunch of classes a fictional student
might be taking. I had a list of classes and a list of grades, and I
wanted to combine them into list of (class, grade) pairs that I
could add and remove classes and grades from.

When I ran my code, I encountered the following error:

Which line do we care about? Well, the first three are all just talking
about where the error occurred, not what the error was. But the
fourth line:

That's our error message! This is what went wrong. We may not
know exactly what it means yet, but we're on the path to finding out!
We know that we used a zip object in our code, so that could be a
great place to start.

2. Ask yourself, is the solution in the error?

Often, you'll encounter syntax errors that will show exactly where the
error occurred and what the error was. When you get these types of
errors, you can go directly back to your code and fix them. Here's an
example of a syntax error:

Here I forgot to include a : at the end of my for statement. Notice

that in this case, the compiler often points to exactly where the error
occured with the ^ symbol, making it easier to fix.

3. Search for other people who have encountered

this error.
Often, step two will not apply, and you'll have to dive a little deeper
into the error. Let's return to the gradebook error I encountered in
step one. Since the solution isn't immediately obvious, I'm going to
have to do a bit of searching online.

Copy and paste the important part of the error message into a search
engine and look through several pages if necessary until you find
someone else who has also run into that issue. Google is always a
good place to check, but another excellent resource to search through
is Stack Overflow, which is a wonderful community of programmers
sharing knowledge and building cool stuff.

I want to solve the error

AttributeError: 'zip' object has no attribute to 'append' , so I
will Google that line and see what comes up. The first result I find
isn't super related, but that's okay!

4. Compare their use case to yours.

Often you will not find someone who was trying to do the exact same
thing you were trying to do, but who still encountered the same error.
Read through their code a bit and see if it is comparable to yours.

Even if their code is wildly different, the one or two lines that threw
the error might be very similar to your code, so the solution may end
up being the same.

Consider my AttributeError . I found a result that didn't seem

related at all, but scrolling down to the third response I see:

Hmm, I'm running Python 3, and all he had to do to fix his code was
change images = zip(bufferArray[:,0]) to
images = list(zip(bufferArray[:,0])) . It's worth a shot!

5. Try to implement the solution.

Tweak the code a bit to match your use case and give it a shot! Worst
case is that the error doesn't go away and then you can try again.
Best case is that it's fixed and you've learned what was causing your
error!
 Every solution you implement is a new tool you can add to your
programmer’s toolbox, and another error you will know how to solve
in the future.

Thankfully, thortom 's solution was able to solve my issues with the
.zip() object. All I had to do was convert it into a list.

In the process of figuring out this compiler error, I learned that zip()
doesn't return a list, it returns an iterator. I also learned that this is a
new feature of Python 3 that didn't exist with Python 2.7. See, every
error is an opportunity to learn!

6. If it doesn't work, repeat steps 2-4.

Keep searching through Google and Stack Overflow. The answer will
be there! Sometimes it's helpful to Google parts of the error message,
not the entire line. Consider the AttributeError . If I Googled just
" .zip() object," I would learn a lot of the same information that I got
from Googling the full error.

The solutions to your errors are out there, and the process of finding
them will make you a stronger and more confident programmer. As
you grow and learn, expect to encounter countless errors, and expect
each one to be its own unique learning opportunity.

Special thanks to Natalia Rodríguez for contributing to this article.

Sht Stirrer • 10 months ago

I am an experienced programmer who still have to go to StackOverflow quite often, no shame in that. But I have a HUGE
problem with StackOverflow - although the majority of posters are very helpful and patient, there are far too many arrogant
a-holes who have zero tolerance for newbies and make downright rude remarks. Just remember, you were also there
once. And there is no such thing as a stupid question - the fact that they are at StackOverflow means they are making an
effort to find an answer to their problem. Have some patience and tolerance, guys!
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Benjamin Fry • 10 months ago

I couldn't agree more! Very helpful article.
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ty mickens • 10 months ago
This was a great and informative article!!!
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Alberto Marenjua • 10 months ago

Red is a beautiful color! Thanks for sharing with us.
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Kalpan Jasani • 10 months ago

I cannot agree more about the idea that the "errors are for you"
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soni801 • 10 months ago

I have a serious problem in Java. In my project, I have a class reading a text file inside of the project. When I export my
project to a .jar file, I get a FileNotFoundException error. I thought the text file would be included in the .jar file because it's
in my project? Please help
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Brian R Cline > soni801 • 10 months ago

I believe you need to explicitly add it to the project.

What IDE are you using?

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soni801 > Brian R Cline • 10 months ago

I'm using JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA CE.
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Mad Gemini • 10 months ago

Thank you :)
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Mutebi Bashir • 10 months ago

Thank you for the wonderful article..
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Kavi Ramsamy • 10 months ago

Intriguing and helpful article. Thanks.
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Samuel Sanchez • 10 months ago

Whenever I program something, the first time I don't expect it to work, I say "Now let's fix the errors". Usually there are
errors and I know it's not that I'm bad at programming, it's that something just don't work as I expected.
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Nick • 10 months ago

OK. But what about covering the far more important flip side of the coin: How to write concise and clear error messages?
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Fabri Miranda • 10 months ago

great Article!
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Chris Goff • 10 months ago

Thank you for floating this article into the aether at exactly the moment I was wavering in my conviction that I could learn
Python. At least for a bit longer, I will be able to withstand the disappointment of the red text appearing when results
should instead...
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NorthShoreBill • 10 months ago

Step 1 was confusing because you used "error" and "error message" interchangeably. Depending on who will be running