I tried to make a simple number guessing game in Python and it broke in a weird way

I was following a tutorial to make a basic game where the computer picks a number and you guess it. I wrote the code, but when I ran it, it just kept asking for a guess forever, even after I got it right. I stared at my screen for an hour, totally stuck. The problem was I used a single equals sign in an 'if' statement instead of a double equals sign. My line said 'if guess = random_number:' which is wrong. It should have been 'if guess == random_number:'. That one little symbol made the whole program act crazy. I felt so silly when I finally saw it. It taught me to check my symbols twice. Has anyone else had a simple typo break their code for way too long?

3 comments

3 Comments

garcia.laura14d ago

Oh man, I feel this one deep in my soul. The single equals sign is like the gremlin of Python, hiding in plain sight just to mess with you. I remember a time I spent like three hours debugging a loop that would never stop, and it turned out I had a 'while True:' that I forgot to break out of because of a similar typo. @zara572 is totally right about that afternoon of despair over a missing comma, honestly code editors should have a "make fun of you" feature for these moments. It's like the computer is gaslighting you into thinking you don't know how to program, when really it's just a forgotten double equals sign pulling a prank. At least now you'll never make that mistake again, or you'll make it again but catch it faster, which is basically the same thing.

thea8571mo ago

Check your equals signs, that mistake has wasted hours of my life too.

zara5721mo ago

Honestly @thea857, that feeling when you finally spot the tiny typo is the worst. Tbh I once spent a whole afternoon on a missing comma in some code. It really makes you want to scream.