Admittedly, I really struggle with written instructions. I have a hard time visualizing them (dyscalculia) and I can’t parse what I’m being asked to do, especially if I feel like the instructions and the task don’t align.
I know this is a mind numbingly easy task (I’ve been using php in WordPress for 10 years) but I got stuck because I hit a cognitive roadblock. Turns out, for years I’ve been accommodating for my dyscalculia with the WP codex. I could copy and paste examples, fill in parameters with options, and I didn’t need to write my own syntax, or even understand all of the pieces at play. But now I can’t work with PHP on it’s own - I need those WP functions to function, apparently. So I’m coming back to learning this and realizing that dyscalculia makes this kind of material difficult to internalize.
The classical introductory exercise. Just say “Hello, World!”.
“Hello, World!” is the traditional first program for beginning programming in a new language or environment.
The objectives are simple:
Write a function that returns the string “Hello, World!”.
Run the test suite and make sure that it succeeds.
Submit your solution and check it at the website.
If everything goes well, you will be ready to fetch your first real exercise.
So the problem here is it says “Write a function” and I was using the online editor and it had a function already for Goodbye something. And I couldn’t understand…like it took me a dumb amount of time just to replace the “Goodbye” string with Hello World, because I thought I was supposed to write something new.
Also - I just echo’d out the hello world in my attempt because…that’s a function? Isn’t it? It does the thing…anyway. For those with learning disabilities, just some “stating the obvious” clarity would be nice.
I also just ran into similar hiccups in the second exercise, and feel bad about my 13 years as a web developer. “Classes” came out nowhere, huh? Why don’t some of these variable declarations end in a semi colon? What does → actually mean?
Don’t misunderstand me - these are REALLY good lessons and I’m very impressed with this setup, and I do think it’ll work for me. But some of us get the question on the test and immediately ask a question about the question and can’t move forward, you know? As much clarity as possible can prevent that.