Unity Development — Bumps in the Road

This may be one of the more important things I will ever attempt to teach those who read my articles. This is true of Unity development, general programming, and basically every challenge you take on in life. Sometimes there are going to be bumps and sometimes things just aren’t going to work.

Of course I am likely biased, but I believe this fact to be especially emphasized in programming. You can look at code that you are positive is all correct. You are using a function you have used a thousand times. Yet, when you hit ‘Play’ your character is floating off into space with their model looking odd, instead of performing the simple jump.

It is vital to have the ability to keep moving forward when something like this happens. Much more important that knowing how to traverse a binary tree or some other obscure programming test that is easy to look up.

Even more important to remember is to take care of yourself. When things don’t work, we tend to fall into a hole of guilt. The greatest programmer the world has ever known has pulled their hair out at one point trying to get something to work. It is completely a part of the territory. If you meet someone who claims they have never had this experience, they are either lying or haven’t challenged themselves even in the slightest.

While there are specific things I will eventually teach you about debugging code, that is not what this article is about. It is about the mental aspect of the tougher coding issues that come into our lives. Some simple tips: Take small breaks, breath and remember that this is part of the journey, and be open to ask for help. There are plenty of communities and forums to post your coding troubles. There are even Unity specific ones.

If you go down this path, it is yours to walk as quickly or as slowly as you like. No matter where you go, there will be obstacles along the way. Find what is the best technique for you. You can do this.