Man, this is the same thing that happens everywhere, not just coding. It's like when you ask a mechanic what's wrong with your car and he starts talking about torque specs and fuel mapping when all you wanted to know was why it's making a weird noise. People forget what it felt like to not know something, so they answer at their own level instead of yours. The good ones remember that feeling and meet you where you're at, which is exactly what that CS50 course and the newbie Discord did for you. I've seen it in cooking, in fitness, in taxes, everywhere, the experts skip the basics because it's boring to them now. Finding one person or one place that doesn't make you feel dumb is worth more than a hundred fancy answers.

Oh wow, this one really made me stop and think because I always figured you had to work the flat face first to keep the thickness even. I got taught that way years ago and just never questioned it, even when I'd get a fold here and there and blame my heats or my hammer angle. What Dale said about the steel moving where it's thinnest makes total sense though, you're basically giving it an easy path instead of squeezing it against the wide side. I tried the corner-first thing on a couple of small tong blanks this weekend and the tangs came out clean with way less fighting. So yeah, I'm a believer now, that one tip changed how I look at drawing out anything thin. Betting a lot of us were taught the flat-first way and just never knew better lol.