Reading errors you don't understand
Sooner or later you'll hit an error that looks like alphabet soup — a long type name, a stack that's all internals, a message in jargon you've never seen. Don't let it stall you. The error is data, not a verdict on your competence. When the message itself is opaque, paste it and ask the AI to translate before it fixes:
I don't understand this error. Before suggesting any fix, explain in plain
language: what is it actually saying, which line is it pointing at, and
what kinds of things typically cause this exact error?
[paste the full error and stack trace]
Asking for the plain-language meaning first does two things. It teaches you the pattern, so the next time you see that error you'll recognize it yourself — and over a few months this is how you actually learn to read your own stack. And it forces the AI to ground its fix in what the error says rather than jumping to a generic patch. Beware the most common error trap: an error that points at line 14 was often caused somewhere else entirely. The line in the trace is where the program noticed the problem, not always where the problem began.