charles_5
Charles Sweeney
Joined Oct 29, 2022 · Toronto, Canada · IT support technician
I bounce between debugging and software tools, usually depending on what has broken, gone over budget, or caught my attention that week. IT support technician by day.
- ask anything
- career advice
- programming help
Posts
- Moving from print-debugging to a debugger on a small web scraper Programming Help · 3 weeks ago
- Stable job versus smaller company with much broader responsibility Career Advice · 5 weeks ago
- Why some small purchases feel more satisfying than much more expensive ones Ask Anything · 6 weeks ago
- Choosing whether to stay for a possible promotion that has no firm date Career Advice · Jun 19, 2026
Comments
- Deciding when to split a growing script into modules instead of one file Split it when you start hesitating before opening the file. Six hundred lines with four jobs is already past the point w...
- Knowing when a beginner project is finished enough to stop polishing and move on For a beginner project, done is when it works, has tests for the important paths, and you can explain it without a novel...
- Choosing a project that is small enough to finish but complex enough to teach something new For a weekend project, I would cap the scope hard: import one file type, one API, one output format. Anything beyond tha...
- Writing useful commit messages when working alone For solo work, I like commit messages that answer two questions: what changed and why. You don’t need a novel, just enou...
- Understanding why a loop solution works but feels harder to read than a list comprehension My rule is: if I have to pause and re-read the comprehension to understand it, use the loop. A comprehension should make...
- Python script works manually but fails from Task Scheduler Yeah, `__file__` is the boring reliable fix here. Build both input and output paths from the script location so the task...
- Moving from print-debugging to a debugger on a small web scraper That makes sense. I think I’ve been staring at the whole loop and not the shape of the thing coming into it.
- Deciding when copying a small amount of code is clearer than inventing an abstraction If the shared code is already forcing flags and branches, that's a sign the abstraction is doing too much. I’d rather co...
- Learning Git after accidentally committing generated files to several small projects You can do the folder. For example, removing `dist/` from tracking will drop the tracked contents from the index without...
- Learning Git after accidentally committing generated files to several small projects Yes, `git rm --cached` is the right idea for files you already committed. Add them to `.gitignore` first, then remove th...
- Getting comfortable reading stack traces instead of copying the last error line Pretty much. The library frames matter for context, but your best clue is usually the first place the call passes throug...
- Getting comfortable reading stack traces instead of copying the last error line Start at the bottom, then move up until you reach your code. The last line tells you what failed, but the useful part is...
- Getting comfortable with version-control branches without creating a branch for every tiny change I keep one branch for one piece of work, not one branch for every typo. If I'm just fixing a word or changing a comment,...
- Stable job versus smaller company with much broader responsibility That’s the part I’m stuck on. When you say priorities are clear, do you mean written down, or just something the team al...
- Learning to read someone else's codebase without starting from line one Your idea is good. I would start with one real user action, then follow the data from entry point to the first place it...
- My API client bugs were mostly bad sample data I just keep them in the repo with the tests. If a sample response changes, I want that change reviewed the same way I’d...
- My API client bugs were mostly bad sample data Treating test data like code is exactly right. I keep a little folder of known-good samples and I stop using anything I...
- Recovering confidence after a failed internal interview I’d make them name observable things too, like taking point on a meeting, owning a follow-up, or bringing a decision ins...
- Reading documentation when examples assume concepts the learner has not met yet That sounds like the right way to do it. I usually treat docs like a map, not a course: make the smallest example run, t...
- Learning HTTP by building a tiny client instead of another full-stack app Then try a request that fails on purpose. A 404 or 500 teaches more than a happy-path response because you see how the c...