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Posted by David Flavell
David Flavell
838 Points

Hints on code challenges

Hi all. New to the Treehouse so I apologise for the basic question. Just have a quick question around code challenges. Is there anyway to obtain a hint during a code challenge? For example, today I was taking the "tables" code challenge from the HTML deep dive. I found myself stuck for a good 20 mins as I had used <td> instead of <th>. Is there anyway to obtain a hint whilst on the page of what/where you have gone wrong?

2 Answers

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
9,767 Points
Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
9,767 Points

The challenge does give a hint if you're close with the red bar that appears, green if you're succesful.

Hints that allow you to easily complete the challenge just so you can move on really don't help anyone.

What's good with the challenges now is that they teach you to debug as well. if you've rewatched the video and are 100% the code on the page is correct, then there must be an error in your code. This teaches you to be accurate coding and to debug well. At the moment, we're dealing with 10 or 20 lines of code in a challenge. Imagine having thousands of lines of code and many many files. One error somewhere in that code can break the entire site.

Debugging is a critical skill to have. Knowing what each bit of code does and how it impacts other bits of code.

If you get seriously stuck, the forum is here to help but...don't turn to it as soon as you don't get the answer on the first go because you'll not learn anything that way.

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points
James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

Matthew Campbell - This is such a great reply!

In the future when people mention getting frustrated when getting stuck on a code challenge I think I'm going to link them here.

David Flavell
David Flavell
838 Points
David Flavell
David Flavell
838 Points

Good point, well made. I never thought of it from a debug point of view! I'll keep cracking on then. It can be frustrating, but I've got to say I am enjoying the challenge!