Spent 4 hours debugging a missing semicolon last night

I got into coding basics about 3 weeks ago, working through some Python tutorials online. Everything was going okay until I hit this one script that just wouldn't run, kept giving me a syntax error. I checked every line, read the error message like 10 times, even rewrote chunks of code thinking my logic was busted. After about 4 hours of staring at the screen, I realized I forgot a single colon after an if statement... yeah, that simple. It's wild how one tiny character can derail everything, especially when you're new. Has anyone else spent way too long on a silly mistake like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

torres.leo19d ago

My buddy spent 2 hours hunting a typo before realizing he named his variable "prnit" instead of "print" lol.

patp7918d ago

Nah the real kicker is that nobody ever thinks to check the spelling in the actual definition of the variable. We all just stare at the code like it's gonna magically fix itself. lmao. I've personally wasted a full afternoon on a missing 's' in a function call and then found it because my eyes glazed over the exact same spot for the 50th time. Your brain literally refuses to see the typo after a while.