Okay, so I decided to finally sit down and really get my hands dirty with this thing I’ve been jotting down notes about, calling it ‘phi 103’ for my own reference. It wasn’t anything official, just my label for this little experiment I wanted to run.
First step was clearing some space on my old machine. Didn’t need anything fancy, just a clean spot to try running a few things without messing up my main setup. I grabbed the basic files I needed – just a small package and some example scripts I’d found or put together earlier. Getting the environment right took a bit longer than I thought. Had to install a couple of helper tools I hadn’t used in a while.
Once that was sorted, I tried running the first basic script. Just a simple test to see if it would even initialize properly. Fired it up, watched the terminal… and yeah, it worked, technically. Didn’t do much, just confirmed it was ready. Felt like turning the key in a car and hearing the engine turn over, you know? A small win.
Then came the actual messing around. I wanted to see how it handled some simple tasks I had in mind. Nothing complex, just basic logic stuff and maybe some text generation based on simple rules I defined.
Trying Things Out
I started feeding it different inputs:
- First try: Gave it some straightforward number sequences. It picked up the pattern pretty quick. Okay, not bad.
- Second try: Threw some slightly more jumbled text at it, asking it to organize it based on a simple keyword. This took a bit more coaxing. Had to adjust the instructions I gave it a couple of times before it started making sense.
- Third try: Pushed it a bit more. Gave it conflicting instructions just to see what would happen. It kinda got stuck, looping on one part or giving nonsensical output. Pretty much what I expected, but seeing it happen live was interesting.
Spent a good chunk of the afternoon just doing this. Feed it something, see the output, tweak the input or the parameters slightly, run it again. It was a lot of trial and error. Mostly error, if I’m being honest. But the errors were where I learned the most. Seeing why it failed was more useful than the times it succeeded.
What I Got Out Of It
Honestly? No big breakthrough. I didn’t build the next big thing or anything. But I got a much better feel for the nuts and bolts. It’s one thing to read about concepts, it’s another thing entirely to actually type the commands, run the code, see the output scroll by, and troubleshoot when it inevitably breaks.
It solidified some ideas for me. Made things less abstract. You see the limitations very clearly when you’re right there poking at it. It’s not magic, just code and data doing their thing based on the instructions. Good practical session, glad I took the time.
