Hi! Super new to coding and I’m going through the tutorials. I have found that I can work on a project for a few days/weeks and then something won’t work. In my last practice, I was working on CatNap and the cat_curl action wouldn’t work. The last time I started the project from scratch (completely separate project), the tail wouldn’t swing, but the cat would curl. I’ve scrapped the whole project again and started a new one. I copied my code over and ran it. Everything worked.
I’ve tried cleaning the project, deleting the offending file and built it up on an individual basis. I find it hard to believe that this is a normal practice to burn it down and start over. What am I missing?
Hi @lykaina05, don’t feel discouraged! You shouldn’t have to redo all your hard work all the time. Whenever you come into an issue feel free to post a snippet of the code you are working on. Or even a screenshot of the problem. Happy coding!
Believe me when I say this, but I truly understand where you are coming from.
Many years ago, I was trying very hard to be a successful Java developer, and unfortunately many of the books that I bought would either assume too much from me and/or not provide step by step instructions to get started, or did not offer any kind of forum support that exists now.
What you’re experiencing is a common feeling, and I honestly would not get discouraged so quickly, and easily. What you need to understand here is that what you’re going through is what ALL of software development is about: 20% programming 80% debugging. Take this as an opportunity to discover what writing code is about. Don’t be down because things didn’t compile nor run as they should. What you should be proud of is being able to complete majority of the work, and now you need to simply close the deal. This is an opportunity for you to learn how to debug your code, which is just as important as learning to code itself.
Set break points in your project, and try to identify what areas are indeed working, and what areas are not. See if the property values are indeed holding the correct values. It’s a process, so definitely take time to improve on your debugging skills.
Part of learning how to program is to ensure that you don’t make the same mistake in the future, thus, by figuring out where you went wrong, you’ll have a better understanding of what it is you are trying to do. Moreover, by being able to at least identify the error, you’ll gain a sense of confidence that at least you’ve isolated the problem, and know what part of your project you need to focus on in order to get it working. Essentially, half of your problem is solved right there.
The other benefit of learning how to debug, and identify errors in your code is that when asking for help, you can ask with confidence what it is you’re having trouble with. While many developers are happy to help, some in particular will only help if they see that you’ve taken steps to try to debug the problem on your own first, instead of simply looking for quick answers. This is not necessarily a bad thing because at the end of the day, it is your project, and so you want to make sure you make it as quick, and easy as possible for someone else to answer your question. If they see that you have not made any effort, why should they? You don’t want to give the impression that you’re being lazy with your own project.
Finally, as @gdelarosa correctly pointed out, help is always available, and it is rare that you’ve come across a problem that no one else has encountered before, so the answer is definitely out there. Either post the code snippet in our forum, especially if it’s from one of our books, or tutorials, or if it’s a large block of code, or code from a personal project, a very useful resource that ALL developers use (including, and especially yours truly ) is StackOverflow. There are developers in almost every language who are always available answering questions, and I can almost guarantee you that you will find a solution to most of your programming questions within 24 hours!
I came to the forums to see if anyone else had the same problem that I did. I was working through the same chapters that @lykaina05 is working on. Trying to get the cat’s tail to animate. If I tap the “Animate” button in the scene editor, it shows the tail infinitely looping its animation, but when I build and run, nothing is animating.
Are there steps missing to get this to work? I’m referring to the end of Chapter 7, before the Challenges section.
I can report a similar problem: the curl-animation doesn’t start after running the project, but within the scene editor using the animate button it works. I changed the animations and checked the animation scene to start, but somehow it did not play after building and running.
It was frustrating, but testing with the solutions code of the book I noticed the same problem. The curl animation or another animation did not play properly. It seems be a problem of Xcode I assume, sometimes occurring and sometimes not. Of course I am not sure about this, as I am a beginner (that is why I am using the book!).
I found the solution in the topic: Unable to swing the cat’s tail like a boss (Chapter 7)
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