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Milestones & the Hint Policy

beginner12 min readLesson 55 of 169

A build order that works, and the escalation ladder for getting unstuck (with AI too).

Suggested milestones

  1. The contract, in memory — implement and self-test the three graded functions with plain lists. Everything else waits.
  2. Persistence — save_expenses / load_expenses wrapping JSON, with the missing/corrupt-file fallback you already wrote in Module 14.
  3. The CLI surface — menu loop or argparse on top of the working core. Keep this layer dumb: parse, call, print.
  4. Tests — a suite of asserts over the core: boundaries (amount 0, ties), the corrupt-file case, a full summary example.
  5. Polish — Vietnamese-friendly output (ensure_ascii=False), a README with usage, requirements.txt if you imported anything beyond the stdlib.

The hint policy (for AI too)

Stuck is normal. The escalation ladder: re-read the requirement → write the pseudocode → ask AI to EXPLAIN your error → ask AI for a HINT on the approach → only then, ask for a small code fragment you fully retype and verify. Copying a whole solution teaches nothing and the readiness checkpoint will find you out.

Now practice

Capstone: Final ReadinessPersistence and composition — the last gates before you ship solo.2 challenges · · ~40 min