I've got some bad news for you.

You aren't perfect.

Nobody is.

You're bound to make a mistake when you're coding.

And even though we just agreed that making errors is a good thing.

It can still feel a little overwhelming.

Part of the reason for this is that you don't yet know the rules of the language.

These rules are called syntax and

I can pretty much guarantee you're going to make a syntax error.

In fact it'd be super weird if you didn't.

So let's do this.

Let's force some errors and then walk through the fixes together.

This error fixing skill will help assist you as you pick up the syntax of

the language.

Okay, so let's launch your workspace.

So, remember when I said that case matters?

So this function name here, print, let's capitalize that p.

Now one nice thing that just happened, did you notice how the color changed?

So see there's regular p, it's red.

Here's capital P, blue.

Our editor knows about the print function.

Note, when I change the file there is a little orange dot up here.

Do you see that?

That's letting me know that the file has been edited, but not yet saved.

So, what I'm gonna do, is I'm going to save this file.

You come in here and you choose Save and you can see that I'm on a Mac so

this is the sign for Cmd+S.

So I believe on a Windows it's Ctrl+S.

So you can go ahead and click Save and now you see the dot is gone.

I wanna make you aware of this totally common problem.

So you write amazing code and you forget to save it and

then by pure instinct you just smack your face on the keyboard trying to figure out

why your script isn't working the way that it says it's supposed to be working.

And it's all because you forgot to save.

And sometimes you even luck out and your nose hits the command key and

your brow hits the S and you fix your problem, but that's rare.

So mind the dot.

So since case matters we know that lowercase print is different than this

capital P print.

But let's keep this here.

Let's see what happens when we run it.

So again, we're gonna come down here and we're gonna say Python.

We're gonna call hello.py.

Yikes, what's that?

That's right.

We've made this happen on purpose.

So, this is what is known as a trace back and

it helps you follow or trace the path in the code that caused the problem.

Kinda makes you feel like a detective, right?

Trace down that perpetrator.

Now we only have a one line script, so it's pretty clear where the area is.

But this can get pretty big pretty quick.

So what this is saying is that the file hello.py on line one and

if you look up here at this line numbers in the gutter.

So if you come here, you can see that I can add new line numbers there and

they go up, so that will help you find those.

I'm gonna get rid of those.

So, we've got an error in line one, and

if you come down to the very bottom you'll see the error.

And we have a name error.

And here it says the name Print with the capital P you notice, is not defined.

So, name here is the name of the function print.

We'll learn here in a bit how to define our own names.

Basically the interpreter here is saying, what you talking about?

There isn't anything defined as a capital P print.

Remember, case matters.

Capital P print and lower case print are different.

Different key strokes for different folks.

So let's fix this, let's go ahead, come up here, change this back to lower case p.

There we go, back to red.

All right, so this print function here is called, I briefly explained earlier that

you call a function by providing an open parentheses and a closing parentheses.

Now note here, if I put my cursor at the opening parentheses or

the closing parentheses, it will highlight.

It will show me how they're balanced.

And it is important that they're balanced, it's part of the syntax of the language.

The syntax states that for a function that an opening parentheses and

everything in between it and the closing parenthesis are arguments.

So, what happens if we forget the trailing parenthesis?

Let's go ahead and get rid of that.

This is invalid syntax, right?

Where would the function call actually end now?

It doesn't, right?

So I'm gonna go ahead, I'm gonna save this.

See the red dot, now the red dot's gone.

So I'm gonna come down back to my terminal.

And the terminal actually has history as well and I can use the up arrow,

and we'll run Python hello.py.

File hello.py line 2, what, there's only one line.

So we have here a syntax error,

unexpected EOF while parsing.

Now parsing is the way that the interpreter breaks down what you wrote

into something that it understands.

It had a problem understanding us because we didn't follow the rules of

the language.

Now, if you don't know what EOF means and you probably don't, what would you do?

Well, what do you do these days when you don't know what a term means.

What do you do?

Yeah, that's right.

You just ask Google or you ask Alexa, or whoever your preferred oracle is.

Let's go over there, I'm gonna use Google for right now.

Hi Maya.

So, I'll say what does EOF stand for?

In computing, end-of-file, commonly abbreviated EOF, is a condition and

a computer operating system where no more data can be read from the data source,

end-of-file.

Well, that makes sense,

it reached the end of the file without finding the closing paren.

I want to reiterate here that you are never alone in your errors.

Millions of people are coding and making mistakes.

You'll find answers to their questions if you just search for them.

The internet is pretty amazing, isn't it?

Now, for course specific things,

remember that there's a wonderful community here to ask.

And you can also search the archives on questions and answers.

So let me point out one more common gotcha before we get cooking.

This is one that happens all the time.

So, in Python you can make a string just like we did here with double quotes,

or you could also use, I'm gonna put this paren back,

you could also use single quotes.

So this is also valid, single quotes.

It really is just a question of style, often though,

the error that happens is that there is a mismatch.

One single quote and one double quote.

Now let's do that, one single quote, and we'll trail it with a double quote.

Now a careful look at that closing paren will show you the problem.

Notice how when it's correct it's black, and

when it's not it's that teal color, the same color as our string.

Now, that's because the string hasn't been ended yet.

It's waiting for us to finish with a single quote, and

it's totally fine to have a quote and a paren in a string.

So there if I put that in, that's valid right?

But since there is no closing single quote,

they're part of the unclosed string.

So let's go ahead, let's make our error happen.

I'm gonna save this.

And I am gonna type clear down here because that will clear the console stuff

that's there and I will press up and get python hello.py.

Here we go, we got a syntax error and we have EOL which is end of line,

while scanning the screen literal.

And you can see that there is an arrow here actually pointing

to where it expected the ending of the string.

Now, this is where you want to really inspect closely,

almost character by character.

I want you to hone your inner detective, aha,

elementary dear Watson, mismatched quotes.

I hope you now feel a little more prepared for

when you encounter those errors and you will.

Don't let them get you down.

When you see those tracebacks, try to remind yourself hey, look at me,

I'm learning.

And with that confidence, let's get to writing some code.

That is right after you take a quick break.

Taking breaks is super important for your learning.

You'll thank me later.

A lot of information just went into your brain.

Let it sink in.

Give a nice stretch, grab a snack, pet your cat, water your plants,

refill your coffee or whatever it is that you like to do when you're taking a break.

It doesn't have to be long.

Come back refreshed and

ready to name some things cuz that's whats up next, creating variables.