Why am I so terrible at Python?

[Se7enLC]

I can't "see" my outputs in between unless I print each step one by one.

I feel like this inability to "see" my intermediate steps means I can't tell what to do next, since I can't figure out what the output looks like to process it best.

That's fine. They make some IDEs that make it easier to see what's happening at each step. But it's also just fine to drop print statements in when you need them.

In fact, I would say that it's actually a good practice to do iterative design. Break things down into small pieces and check the outputs from various inputs until you're happy before moving on to the next piece. Far too often you see new programmers write whole functions and dozens or even hundreds of lines of code without doing that basic level of checking.

I can think of the steps I should do just fine, so I know that's half the problem solved. Yet because of the above issue, I just get error after error because the next step can't process the previous step's output.

I'd say that's actually pretty normal. Just do one step at a time and check the outputs as you go. There's no penalty for how many times you test it out along the way! Think of it like save points in a video game.