Original post: How to escape from Tutorial Hell and never come back
How to escape from Tutorial Hell and never come back
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Thank you for this article! I had the problem described here and it was pretty frustrating experience. I read tutorial after tutorial. Sometimes I didn't even coded the project from tutors. I just went through a tutorial, felt that I spent my time productive and forgot about it forever. It's the first time I read about it and now I know that I was not alone.
It is bizarre for me to understand the mindset of someone getting stuck watching tutorials and never progressing since this never happened to me. Probably since when I started a decade ago we couldn't binge-watch video tutorials you just had to build it and bang your head against the wall until you were complete.
I have an application I get mentees to build and I've noticed when they hit the hard bits they go off and start watching video tutorials instead of trying to solve the problem in front of them and days later they are now following video tutorials and completely unrelated to the project.
Another thing I've stopped doing is pair programming with them giving them instructional steps because they just blindly follow your steps. Banging your head against problems until you solve them is what you have to do, and it looks like people find any way possible to avoid that experience.
I'm definitely in the school of build it. Love to look at other people's code then try and replicate it in a different way, and then hack it to do something else, then realise I could have done it another way entirely. But hands on is the way to go, better to pick up and play with it (while searching Google like crazy) then be led by the hand.
Yeah. Many people say "Just work on your own", but reading someone's else code teaches you to do things in a way you could not even dream.
And teaches you how 'real' developers do things.
It also helps passively introduce you to things like factories and design patterns because you see them in action and have to intuit the implementation rather than just magically decide you need to know about these things because you stumbled across a tutorial or article.
Best way to get out of tutorial hell is to find a tutorial that addresses your need then just watch, no coding. Figure out why they’re doing what they’re doing and understand the process and foundation of the code. Then afterwards write your code without the tutorial.
Greetings,
Ahah, this resonated so hard with me.
This is why I decided to give myself only one more tutorial(CodeCademy C# Path) on this 100daysofcode beginning and then not touch another one until the end. It's time to actually built something.
Best Regards,
Cat
I'm doing the challenge too (3rd time) and I used to just chill and do tutorials or books.
But now I'm doing projects too between video tutorials/books, and while it is frustrating sometimes, you learn more.
And you spend more time working without noticing.
Thanks! this article reflects exactly where I am now, and it's a terrible place.
One thing I want to mention is another side effect of being in tutorial hell: the terrible feeling that you have wasted a lot of time studying things that you have already forgotten about, and the guilt that these thoughts provoke in you.
I hope I'll take my ticket out of here as soon as possible.
It's interesting you have a link for your tutorials in an article about getting away from tutorials lol
I do agree that building things and contributing to OS is a great way to get out if it 👍🏻
Is not about getting away from tutorials, but how to not be trapped by them.
I'm still doing tutorials to learn how to do things. But after that, I'm going to do those things I want to do, not keep doing more and more tutorials.
Gotcha. I hear that!
hi thanks you for your article. but how can i build something on my own? if i were to create a snake game in python what steps should i take to create a working program? did i need to use existing code on the internet to solve it?
The problem is that beginners do not see what the scope of what programming is.
You need to define a clear goal. For example, you could decide to go for web development and in that case, you need to know what exactly it takes to build a web app. What kind of applications you can build, what technologies you can use in Frontend and Backend, how to test apps, where to deploy them.
Then, you go deeper into FE and BE and you need to understand what the building blocks are. It may seem like a high level, but in fact, without this knowledge you get stuck in tutorial hell.
Knowing what is needed to build a fully fictional web app gives you a better idea about what you need to learn or how to ask questions to get the right answers.
I am working on a beginner-friendly tutorial on creating a Trello clone to teach beginners how to think to be able to build a large scale app. Check it out: js.comparecourses.dev/
Thanks for that article. Helped me realize I was on the path to the tutorial hell, time to build some sh** now
Thanks! If I can help even only one person with this article, I'm happy.
Thanks ❤️