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How to escape tutorial hell — the 100% fallacy

Diego (Relatable Code) on March 13, 2022

Introduction So how do we escape tutorial hell? Well, I should start from the very beginning. In the first part of this series, I report...
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SandraRodgers

This is such useful information. The best thing you can do is just build stuff! Like you said, even just cloning a project is worth it. Clone it and change a couple things in it.

And if you need other ideas, there are lots of resources out there. Like the Dev.to hackathons that take place every month or so. The one this month to build a project with the Deepgram speech-to-text API is a really good one, and I'm hoping to participate in future ones (can't participate in this one since I work for Deepgram, and no, this isn't a shameless plug - I truly think hackathons are an awesome way to challenge yourself to learn something new.

Love the article!

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Diego (Relatable Code)

Didn't take it as a shameless plug at all! I completely agree with the hackathon idea especially if you can do it as a team.

Meet some people, make some friends and work on the soft skills needed for a team once you get the job. (and besides its usually more fun with others, but by yourself is fine too!)

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Eljay-Adobe

There are several broad categories of how people learn.

Tutorial mini-projects or coding challenges are of little learning value for me.

I learn best with a good tutorial book, and a good reference manual. Charles Petzold's book Programming Windows is a good example of a book that panders to my style of learning. Or Dave Fancher's book The Book of F#. Or Aaron Hillegass's book Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X.

I also learn well from "monkey see monkey do". Not for tutorial mini-projects, but for cloning a real project and then futzing with it.

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Diego (Relatable Code)

These are some good points. The futzing around part is where I get my best learning 😅

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m0nm

Very useful post, I would like to add some of my advice for self-taughts out there if you don't mind.

Consistency: This is in my opinion the major point for success be it coding or any other field of skills, You should aim to make coding a consistent habit, Always make sure that you're doing something related to code no matter how small or trivial it is. This is commonly known as no zero days.

Don't try to learn something unless you need it
It is no doubt that beginners will feel overwhelmed by the huge list of technologies out there, This sets you up in the famous trap of "I got to learn all of these!" and you would find yourself jumping from "technology A" tutorial to "technology B" tutorial endlessly.

So my advice is Don't learn something unless you need it!, You want to build a website ? HTML is the solution ? okay learn it, You want to style it now ? CSS is the solution ? okay learn it ? Adding interactivity ? Javascript ? then use javascript until you have a good reason to use a framework. You have no reason ? keep using javascript.

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Diego (Relatable Code)

Completely agree! When I first started out I tried learning everything new that was coming out. Quickly becaming overwhelming.

I learned to just know of its existence, MAYBE read an article on how it works and dive deep as needed.

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Ricardo

Formal education helps. Understanding that it is the mindset that matters and not knowing all the latest trending frameworks.

I started programming when I was about 14 and read and watched many tutorials. The learning path was random and I focused mainly on the tools. If it worked, then fine.

Then I attended university and became a BSc in software engineering. I learned abstract concepts like algorithms, data structures, boolean algebra, discrete mathematics, problem-solving techniques and so on. That's what made me a complete software engineer. That and many hours of coding, I have to agree with you on that.

Now "it works" is just not enough; the solution must implement the best algorithm, be the fastest and the one that uses the least resources possible.

As an analogy: canvases, paintbrushes and inks don't make the artist, the mindset does.

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Diego (Relatable Code)

Definitely agree that the mindset usually translates to any endeavor, not just limited to programming. Similar to the famous adage "Understand the why not the how", this comes with wisdom and not knowledge.

Why certain technologies even exist and when to use them and that is independent of the tools.

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Anja

That article made me realize that I'm in tutorial hell right now. All the time I think that I didn't learn enough in the last year, that there has to be more things I need to internalize before getting a job, that I need to feel more comfy with every topic that seems important to me.
But maybe it's time to trust myself and keep going on without a teacher, I'll have to be on stackoverflow nevertheless. ;)

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Nicolas Devaux

I agree. Furthermore there is on the web, as for any type of information, many tutorials whose intention is not to teach you or to help you learn something, but are vague copies of official documentation. The only purpose of those tutorials are to gain visibility and doing marketing... It's not only tutorial hell, it's information's hell. Just try to find the truth by myself by experimenting things. Love some tutorials though, when they are seriously built, for having a quick and general information about a thing.

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diballesteros profile image
Diego (Relatable Code)

Yeah. I think tutorials in and of themselves aren't bad. They can be great resources like you said (when built well).

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Emant

Also watching some vid not bad for grasping general idea

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David Rowan III

Beautifully put. I too feel the same as you felt. I feel I don't know enough to go forward. I will put what you said to practice. Thanks for the encouragement.

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Diego (Relatable Code)

Glad you enjoyed it. Put it into practice and I'm positive you'll feel like you got a better grasp on things.

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Deepa Chaurasia

I was just inspecting dev.to website only, seems like I can learn pretty much from here also

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John Peters

There's no time like lab time.

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Emant

I learning something by doin, coding.

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Jon Randy 🎖️ • Edited

Easiest way to escape tutorial hell? Don't do tutorials to start with. I'm 100% serious

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Diego (Relatable Code)

I mostly agree, especially I feel that with more experience you'll learn to just read the docs and go from there. At the very beginning of learning just one (specifically for visual learners) can be OK.

But past that I feel it has diminishing returns.