Recently, I started learning Flutter to build an app for the Technovation challenge, and I thought creating a Dart file would be as straightforward as creating an HTML file, but I was wrong. I thought all I had to do was create a file named index.dart the same way I would create an index.html file. So I started my learning by watching tutorials on YouTube. The first tutorial I watched made use of Android Studio, and I was not quite familiar with it, so I searched for Flutter tutorials using VS Code (which I was familiar with).
From the video, I was instructed to write flutter create xyz"name of my app" in my terminal. This command was meant to install the dependencies from Github to my folder, but it didn't; it was showing an error saying the term "flutter" is not recognized.
This is when I realized I missed a step, like downloading the Flutter SDK, so after installing the SDK, I noticed it still didn't work and I was getting a lot of error messages. After tackling this issue for like two days, I decided to reach out to Uche (a friend of mine who is a mobile developer), and he advised me to download the Android Studio code, which I did, and we got a Google Meet call to try to fix the issue.
As I understood that I needed to install the Flutter SDK in a specific location on my PC for it to function, the bugs started to slowly go away. On my command prompt, I entered the commands flutter --version and flutter doc. The command flutter --version was to tell you about the correct version of Flutter you had on your system, though at first, it was showing it wasn't installed. After fixing the SDK, it finally showed up while the command flutter doc inspected the tools that are installed on the local PC and the tools that need to be configured. After running this particular command, a lot of errors came out... more bugs.
Then I had to download Visual Studio Setup, which I installed after installing it. After installing everything required for developing mobile apps (which used a lot of data and lost time), I ran the flutter doc and found no more bugs.
yayyyyyyyyyyyy
(PS: All these bugs took 2-4 nights to solve.)
I then went to Android Studio and tried to launch my usual app on the emulator, but it was running so slowly that my laptop kept hanging. As a result, a friend suggested that I use my phone as an emulator. I then turned on developer mode on my phone, plugged it into my computer using my USB cord, and tried running it once more. We ran into bugs again after waiting for a bit, and by this time I was worn out. One of the bugs said something about missing the latest Java stuff, which I downloaded via this website. After that, I deleted some stuff on my phone to get additional space, and it finally worked.
It was a very daring experience because at one point I was about to tell my teammates I wouldn't go on, but I was able to succeed by Googling and with the help of Uche too.
Summary.
This experience made me understand what debugging is all about. Of course debugging is the process of identifying and removing errors from computer hardware or software and it's also a skill that all developers must have but I would like to add a few things to that. I also think to be able to debug you should be able to adapt. How you may ask? Let me take myself for example When I first started learning Flutter, I thought it would be similar to front end, but when it wasn't, I stayed, knowing full well that I would face challenges along the way, and when the challenges came, I could have given up, but I did everything I could to overcome them. Not all bugs can be solved by yourself. There's a popular search engine tool "Google" that gives you access to a ton of information that would help you find solutions to your bugs. This is also where the connections come in, if you get stuck, you can reach out to a friend or community member for help, and both of you will be able to fix it. I
I don't think it's logical to expect someone who just started learning a programming language to be able to fix all the bugs they come in contact with at the beginning, though people differ. With time, the person will become an expert and work on their debugging skills, but for me, I believe what matters most is the energy you put into solving the problem. The fact that you kept pushing and looking for a solution is what makes you super in my book.
So, no matter what bug you come across, you can fix it with determination, and never feel too big to ask for help so you don't become a victim of had I know.