Remembering when my first real project just flat out crashed and burned

A couple months back I was working on this little weather app for my portfolio, nothing fancy. I thought I had it all figured out, spent like 3 weekends on it. Then one day I tested it with a weird zip code and the whole thing just froze up, no error message or anything. Turns out I forgot to handle what happens when the API doesn't return data, the code just sat there spinning forever. I felt so dumb because it was such a basic thing to miss, but I learned more fixing that one bug than I did building the rest of the app. It made me realize how much I relied on everything going perfectly, which is never how real coding works. Has anyone else had a project where one tiny oversight made you feel like you were starting from zero?

2 comments

2 Comments

wyatt_ross2714d ago

Oh man, that's the worst. Happens to all of us though, you learn way more from the fails than the easy wins.

tessa_roberts114d ago

This reminds me of my friend Sarah who tried to fix her own garbage disposal and ended up with water spraying everywhere in her kitchen. @wyatt_ross27 is right though, she definitely knows how to shut off the water valve now after that disaster. She had to call a plumber anyway but at least she learned something.