@DavidAmes @futurebird note however that the term is misused here (and elsewhere) -- learned helplessness is a clinical term describing people no longer attempting things that have previously gotten them punished (usually physically hurt), even if that response is no longer present. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness This is often an explanation for seemingly illogical behavior in people who've endured abuse, and it's frustrating that the word is now being used to shame people for exhibiting the behavior! I point this out not as a criticism of the blog piece but in hopes that we use different terms going forward.

@phronetic @futurebird I can imagine a classroom where there's a running list of error messages encountered, and you get a sticker or bonus points or something for finding a new one, and explaining to the class what it means once you've figured it out. These days I can get an error message and approach it with "ooooohhhh never seen that before", but in my earlier years, hah!

@futurebird @Zwifi how are you currently teaching that debugging is a skill and part of what they're learning? Do they take notes on, or see presentations of, how bugs (including typos) were identified and fixed? Maybe even presenting to each other the problems they each got stuck on, or debugging as a class on occasion so they can see the process in real time while they're not currently panicking?

@MCDuncanLab @futurebird I also found exercises fixing someone else's code to be much less frustrating than fixing my own, and revelatory as to how something done apparently-right can work very wrong. I needed lots of practice with this before I could approach errors with a cool head.