1.Whenever possible, avoid using explicit for-loops in your code.
2.Thus, for your first few programs, you might choose to first implement your algorithm without too many vectorization tricks, and verify that it is working correctly (perhaps by running on a small problem). Then only after it is working, you can vectorize your code one piece at a time, pausing after each piece to verify that your code is still computing the same result as before. At the end, you'll then hopefully have a correct, debugged, and vectorized/efficient piece of code.