Is it bad I am using google to help me

Is it bad I am using google to help me on the challenges when I get stuck? I am taking code from google and tweaking it so I can pass the tests(sometimes I don’t fully understand the code I am copying)

1 Like

This is probably bad. You should always strive to understand everything in your code. Otherwise, how will you know if it works exactly the way you intend it in every situation. Something may work for most cases but break miserably for an edge case. And what if you need to modify it in the future? If you don’t understand how the code works now you probably won’t understand how to fix any bugs or add additional functionality.

As for your general question, I would not copy/paste code you find. Since you are learning. you should create your own code from scratch. That’s how you learn. If you don’t understand a concept then you can use google to find information on that concept. But as far as the coding goes, do your own work, you will be better off for it in the long run.

Old guy rant :slight_smile: Back in the day before everyone and their dog had google search at their fingertips we had to write our own code from scratch and the only resources we had were books and friends. Yep, it took a lot longer to solve a problem, but at the end of the day you understand the problem completely. Sometimes I wish we could cut-off internet access to people learning to code :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Hi @Iceyy

I don’t think googling is bad, we all do it. But maybe tweaking code when you haven’t understood it is questionable. I suppose at the end of the day you really want to understand because it is for your own good. The good thing is you are googling, if you find something that works maybe you should google why it works the way it works.

1 Like

Hello, Iceyy. Welcome to the forums. :grinning:

The fact you asked this question in the first place means that you already know that the “cut and paste with minor tweaks” method won’t get you far. Real-world problems are often difficult to diagnose and fix, so you will need that foundational understanding to help you get a good picture of what it is you’re dealing with, and how to go about it solving it.

The good news is that you are in the right place to start developing your abilities as a coder/developer. People here are always eager to help and give advice. You can also re-take any challenge after you’ve passed it to re-evaluate what you’ve learned if you feel you didn’t understand the solution in the first place. You will use Google quite a lot over the course of your coding career: it is an essential tool in your development kit, but it becomes much more powerful once you know the basics of coding.

Best of luck! :grin:

If you have some friends who are also interested in coding, you will find that it goes a long way to building your understanding. You end up talking about tech and what you’re working on, and you help each come up with ideas and share experiences that give you a much broader picture of what’s out there.

Using Google? Nah, it’s the best search-platform in the world.
If I could, I would search on stackoverflow directly, but their built-in search is just not as reliable…

That being said: If you don’t understand the code, what’s the point of doing the challenge? The point is to LEARN CODING - if you are not learning to code, you are doing something wrong…
You don’t have to memorize everything, but you should spent the extra minute understanding what the code actually does.

I don’t think copying code from google is a good idea. However, i believe most beginners use google to just get definition on some concept, I do too, only that I do nothing like copy…lol.

If your test fails just click on the fail tab (the with fraction 2/10 or whatever), there you’ll see all you need to do to correct your code error and get it to pass all.

I just completed my 1st project too, my code passed all and it feels so good.

1 Like

Well you can copy code BUT you need to understand it. Developers don’t memorize all commands and stuff - hence they will also often google code and copy some snippets. But they also read it and determine if it is what they need - because usually you need to adjust it in one way or another.
After all, major part of developing is debugging and that’s impossible if you don’t know what the code does, you write/copy.

1 Like

I’ll just add your point to my knowledge base cos I’m just getting started myself…lol. Life shouldn’t be difficult after all.

Exactly ^^
Also I just realized, every time we import a library, we basically copy code. And that’s code we might not even be able to fully understand, let alone write ourselfs.
I would have no idea how to start writing a regular-expression library or a convoluted-neural-network optimizer. And I don’t have to, because I don’t have a phd in computer-science or data-science.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 182 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.