Tutorials Are KILLING Your Growth | Prime Reacts

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[@hobbies2seriously]

Tutorials only work if you’re using vim

[@anandmahamuni5442]

Or you click the subscribe the button

[@randomocitystudios5046]

catch 22: Vim only works if you've used tutorials

[@gravisan]

Only if you are using Chad nvim

[@captainnoyaux]

Yup grind vimtutor but just enough to be confortable, after that it's solving real problems that makes you better at it

[@cypherop2608]

😂

[@lppedd]

I've got two rules: 1. Don't use stuff that hasn't got a decent amount of official documentation 2. Read the official documentation Really, it seems to me that developers lost the ability to navigate documentation and instead they rely on tutorials for every specific use case. And I bet this is because everything has to be completed by yesterday. That's how sh*t code gets merged.

[@paypalmymoneydfs]

Documentation is so huge, it was much easier building on my own in Angular and dotNet than React and Spring Boot respectively

[@aziskgarion378]

I learned Python by reading the docs. The docs are amazing.

[@LaughingOrange]

For JS, MDN has legitimately 10x'd my programming. There is no official documentation except for the specification, so MDN is the most official good documentation.

[@AD-wg8ik]

Project tutorials help when learning a new language/framework because you can see how everything works and fits together at a high level. I found following projects expedite my learning and give me an anchor for future builds, rather than simply reading documentation. I'll read documentation when I am already comfortable and want a deeper understanding

[@emptystuff1593]

@@paypalmymoneydfs I use Spring Boot at my job for many years. I've read ALL its documentation. It's shit. There are many components you need to read the source code or use and debug to be able to understand.

[@JonathanTheZombie]

As a senior engineer, I rely on tutorials to show me the basic architecture. After that, it’s official documentation, books, and google/stack exchange.

[@angjonsehrik7561]

I got rejected cz of saying this in an interview

[@armandoleon9901]

I do something similar. I use tutorials and then cross reference with official documentation, because tutorials leave out a lot of important details. Then I just read books and stick with documentation.

[@dpmadness6179]

CAP - I got started programming with newboston Java tutorials....today I'm an SE architect, I started writing code while following buckee's videos. I knew nothing about what I was writing at the time, but I stayed curious and kept asking questions that eventually lead me to purchasing books, which lead to more programming...The real point here is - if you care enough to learn then it really doesn't matter how you get started.

[@dpmadness6179]

I guess one exception is that todays media culture is more 'infotainment' leaning - a small challenge for a new learner...

[@theuberlord7402]

Haha, classic newboston. I was 11 or 12 when I watched the same tutorials with the ultimate aspiration of creating Minecraft mods - quickly gave up when I learned my brain just wasn’t cut out for it at the time. Returned to learning how to code 6 years later when the neurons worked a bit better together. Now in my third year of a software engineering degree!

[@blo0mfilter868]

Lol same. I was a kid who got started with a youtuber called benny who's got this long series about making a 3d game engine in Java. I didnt even knew Java at the time, but I just followed whatever he was doing. Eventually I learned Java by googling tutorials and fixing the many errors and mistyped code I made. Years later after college I got a job at Coinbase as an SWE in Infra, writing Ruby and Go code.

[@zED-rb1ku]

Uh oh look at me I am different than the norm therefor it must all be bullshit what he said. Lmao

[@NickSteffen]

Yea, gotta agree, I don’t find myself using them very often but when I do, it’s for all the reasons he said they are bad. A good tutorial will often given you the reasoning behind almost every aspect of the project setup. You also often get best practices from someone experienced. Reading documentation often doesn’t explain the side choices and context that get you into a situation where the documentation is relevant. The documentation also typically is skimpy on best practices. I’ve also found documentation to be flat out wrong just as often as tutorials so I don’t really count that as a plus. I will add this though, trying to learn anything with tutorials or otherwise without a hard goal/project will always be a waste of time. Tutorials will just waste your time for longer. (learning to be good at xyz is not a hard goal. Building an app to do abc using xyz is)

[@jacobbeaumont8716]

Tutorials are really good for a very first exploration into coding. Like if you've never done any programming before then it's very difficult to formulate the question that you need to find an answer. Like "How to convert a string to an int in C#" is just not something that someone who has no knowledge of programming would ever thing to ask, because they don't know what a string is, they don't know what an int is, and they don't know that there's a possibility to convert between the two. The best tutorials are the ones that teach you the keywords so you know how to do your own research later on. It's less about the content or the code itself, it's knowing "oh yeah, C# has methods to change data types, let's look that up". I think something that experienced programmers sometimes don't think about when recommending resources to beginners is that when you're first learning to program you're learning both a new programming language, and also the language of programming itself. The docs of any language are impossible to parse without knowing at least some programming terminology.

[@Kane0123]

Gives you the knowledge to pursue more knowledge

[@BruceNJeffAreMyFlies]

That's exactly it! I use tutorials as a way of getting some experience, familiarity, with a concept. If I follow a tutorial on how to make a front end, I can then make my own front end considerably faster because I have some understanding of how it works and what issues I may encounter.

[@boratsagdiyev522]

Bruh I've been stuck learning front end for 2 years now. I hate css and I can't create my own projects even tho I've know alot of terminology and have watched multiple tutorials. Should I quit?

[@complexrapper1340]

yes@@boratsagdiyev522

[@kiwana_collins]

​@@boratsagdiyev522go for The Odin Project it will make you the real programmer I was like you but am now different

[@edwardmitchell6581]

The one thing worse than tutorials are DataCamp lessons: 1. Past this. 2. [new window] Past this and run. 3. [new window] Paste this and run. 4. [new window] Challenge paste and change to fit the problem. hint: the example code references cats, the problem is asking about dogs.

[@orbatos]

As someone who has built and implemented curriculum, yes. Actual courses will force you to use the tools, not paste your way to the end. The problem is that this takes longer to write and hard to test. On top of this there is a negative incentive against producing good quality materials because the industry just milks production in an exploitive manner.

[@wtwingate]

This is why I’ve found the old K&R book and CS50 so useful for learning how to program. They both give you just enough explicit instruction to get your feet wet with a concept, and then throw you into the deep end with their exercises. That struggle is where the real learning happens (and it’s fun too!)

[@lucasqueiroz23]

Some K&R exercises were really challenging for me...

[@vikingthedude]

The CS50 exercises are great. I didn't do them personally because I'm already a few years into programming, but I'm helping a friend learn how to code and I've seen him improve so much by doing those exercises

[@radspiderjackson]

CS50 is something that I've always felt could be super helpful for me to get that baseline understanding of what was going on, but one reason or another i always stop following the course.

[@Kane0123]

But these “books” don’t give you a shiny sticker or certification you can add to your LinkedIn…

[@Supakills101]

CS50 is an online course that gives you a certificate@@Kane0123

[@mattdivito3581]

Tutorials being "good" or "bad" is largely dependent on the author and format. Tutorials that are just listed steps, codes snippets, and example files are what can definitely hamper growth and learning. While they can help get the job done (if they fit your specific use case), and some people might be able to translate some of the concepts from basic tutorials towards future uses, this doesn't necessarily apply to the majority of users. Those rudimentary 'follow the steps, copy the code' tutorials rarely teach the concepts behind those functions, pros/cons, use cases, etc... While a lot of people in the comments are saying "read the documentation," this isn't the best either. Depending on how new you are as a programmer, what language you're using, and what you're looking into, documentations can be absolutely massive, as well as limited; documentations aren't about teaching. The other poor area in regards to simply traversing documentation is that your project, or ideas might use the smallest fraction of the available tools and concepts of a particular language, making it mostly a waste of time for newer or hobbyist programmers. As many programmers know, there are generally many ways to solve the same problem in any given language, and good tutorials (or education books, courses) will generally explore alternatives and explain why one implementation might be better than another. This is especially true once you work on more intensive projects, where latency, CPU usage or redundancy matters, and solutions require more experience and a deeper understanding of what the code is doing behind the scenes. Good tutorials bridge the gap between dry, sometimes basic documentation, and real-world, experienced examples of how to use that code, while explaining the concepts behind its use, especially vs. other solutions to problems. And then offer exercises to further implement several functions together.

[@lollol012]

Recently watched a 4 hour NestJS tutorial, because I had to do a HW assignment in it. Overall, just watching it didn't do much by itself, but going back to it during the HW helped a lot, and doing the HW itself helped me remember it for the future. All in all, good tutorials provide a good starting point, but relying on them fully and pretending it's enough is deluding yourself.

[@aakarshan4644]

I had massive learning curve to climb in nestjs aswell, due to my job. It took me a while to get over it ( without any course or tutorials or even docs )

[@marketsmoto3180]

homework assignment?????? drop out bro! save your money and learn on your own!!!

[@Alaa-mu9mr]

Homework for what?

[@meltygear5955]

@@Alaa-mu9mr For The Startup, what else?

[@Alaa-mu9mr]

@@meltygear5955 what startup ?

[@271kochu]

>be me, watching Prime at 2x >Prime then speeds up the video he is watching >it's still slow

[@byronhodel]

When I was 13, I wanted to learn programming; however, I soon gave up since I simply copied what I saw and never bothered to reflect on what was being written. It was not until a year or two later when I started branching off and trying my own things that I started learning how the code I got from tutorials actually worked.

[@riki4644]

Me too except I did it again. I learned html/css though. I'm learning C now.

[@dailyshadow]

I really enjoy tutorials when initially learning a language. It’s less boring for me than just reading documentation. When I first started learning rust, I just followed a tutorial and I learned a lot about the language. I also have a masters in software engineering and 5ish years of work experience, so definitely not new to programming or software.

[@RedSpark_]

I'm glad you mentioned that bit about try, fail, do a little bit repeat. After learning some basics I'm trying to do projects now and every step is hours of reading on each new topic for like 4 lines of code. I'm definitely learning but it feels glacial.

[@boratsagdiyev522]

I feel ur pain. Do u ever so stuck on something that u don't even know what to do next?

[@RedSpark_]

@@boratsagdiyev522 yeah I think those problems fall into the category of 'you don't know what you don't know'. I've found that the only way around that is to just read more or find people to ask who can at least tell you the name of the thing that you don't know. once you know that, you can go and learn it.

[@synk2]

Yeah, completely agree with this take. Ends up that all programming is easy, right up until the point that it isn't, and that's what tutorials can't really teach. Knowing how to work through issues and develop intuition for problem solving are really the core skills of programming and it's something you only get by doing. Beginners need to take what they get out of a tutorial and apply, apply, apply...and fail, and work through those failures until they actually get what's going on under the hood. That's a step that nothing in the tutorial-space can really do; it's a personal thing that every individual is going to have to get for themselves. I think the folks that just tutorial-hop are missing that crucial 'internal' drive to try and make something personal with that knowledge so they really understand what they learned.

[@boratsagdiyev522]

My problem is where do I even start when building something of my own. Do I google my question to find an answer? Ex., I've watched couple tutorials on how to build a meme generator. But to try and do it on my own is where my brain blanks out.

[@zbigniewstasiak8008]

What I used to do in past, I had been watching tutorials to get general know how, and then I tried to implement something small from scratch by my own. Usually I felt biggest growth when e.g. I faced the issue which was not present in tutorial, and I had to find solution without reproducing someone else code

[@chaorrottai]

That's my take on it. The tutorial shows you the feature and how to use it somewhat, but then you actually have to use the feature and play with is a little bit so that you remember how it works and how to use it. Watching the tutorial and doing nothing is like watching a tv show on flipping houses and expecting to learn carpentry

[@realhumanbean7915]

That's exactly what I'm doing in CS50's "credit" problem. I'm pretty sure they're asking me to make a shitty luhn's algorithm by using something not seen in class

[@MorphTW]

Love these reaction videos. I can get multiple perspectives on a single topic. Respect for linking the original video.❤

[@Euphorya]

I've found following a tutorial in a different programming language helps keep the knowledge in my brain better. The extra friction of translating from the language the tutorial is using helps a lot.

[@StdDev99]

What's worse than doing so many tutorials is reading so many tech news articles

[@ehm-wg8pd]

like MEDIUM, everybody can throw click baity shits there

[@juggles5474]

And watching too many KZbinrs say how terrible tutorials are. Wonder how many hours of youtube videos there are of this exact topic

[@Ankhar2332]

@@juggles5474and this is exactly tutorial that is useful

[@Dr.Kananga]

IMO it's how information is fed to the person willing to learn programming that makes the difference. I found a few dedicated YT channels that explain coding and design systems with visual elements and animations, it's incredible how fast you understand the concepts and their applications, whereas plunging into books describing with hundreds of words a single concept can be difficult beside being boring. The brain perceives instructions in the shape of images better than accurate descriptions.

[@Kane0123]

Nick Chapsas / IAmTimCorey are these people in the c# world

[@emmachihuahua3009]

what youtube channels are good?

[@Dr.Kananga]

@@emmachihuahua3009 ByteBytgoGo

[@kierandansey7293]

I think a lot of people come to this realization on their own. After a certain point they recognize tutorials aren't helping and they try to build something of their own. They learn about how to learn... meta-learning. That in itself is a good quality to have, to recognize when something isn't working and to pivot to something else. There are also people who never learn this and give up. In this way tutorials act like a sieve, those that evolve beyond them become "coders", those that can't dig themselves out of the rut quit.

[@boratsagdiyev522]

I'm in that rut for 2 years now

[@summussum7540]

As a newcomer, I absolutely stand by his first bit of advice. Once you get to a point where the task seems approachable, pause and struggle until you have failed a few times and are absolutely stuck. When you get the solution, it sticks better, has more context, and you can actually do it yourself!

[@TerranVisitor]

@ThePrimeTime. When I started my job working on a main frame (Operations Analyst), it was day after day of reading language doc (mapper) - fell asleep doing so almost every day. But, it sank in. I was writing code within a month. Within six months the seniors (all departments) were coming to me asking questions. I really do feel that the ideal is to learn on/with actual hardware - electronics - and writing machine/assembly. It empowers the individual to know WHAT TO EXPECT a language MUST do, and why.

[@---we8bx]

Tutorials are great, it save you a lot of time learning and not rediscovering things, for example would I be able learn design patterns or data structures and algorithms, if I just dive to problem solving? maybe, but how long?

[@TIME1minute]

Tutorials have been most useful for me when I have an existing task (“make a discord bot” for instance) and have come to a point where I slow down to like 0.5 mph on a particularly tough part of the project. It’s a variation of “go out and do something with what you learned”, where you already have the real world example. The difference is that I have to fit what the tutorial teaches into what I already have, which I think is actually a much better position to learn from than “ok time to come up with a use for this so I can practice”

[@theangelofspace155]

I partially agree. I like to speed run, (not actually coding the tutorial), crash courses of something that I want to learn so I can see the whole picture, I then go to the documentation, follow the documentation's geting started section and THEN i follow prime advices 4:25 amd just for tutorials for specific things that I want to refine. I also like teaching in that same way; I show students the whole picture, I dont expect them to learn anything, I then go deep and break everything down to the simplest concept, and I build it back up to the initail exposure. As I present the small pieces students, most not all, react (not the framework), like " Oh that what he meant".

[@ggnorton7]

I absolutely agree on the “try to do it after explanation before example”, that’s such a good tip

[@stephentanksleymusic7240]

So regarding the take at 7:22 - I agree. Docs by themselves are typically not great for 0-60. They'll show you the right way (preferred way?) to do things when using that library/tool/language/framework, but if you're looking to build a project just reading the docs might not be all that helpful. When I was getting started building my own side projects, what I found was that tutorials were helpful for me to learn how to do specific things which furthered my overall goal. The point of a tutorial (IMO) is kinda like spot welding. You want to get a bit of knowledge that serves a particular purpose. But you wouldn't put together a vehicle entirely out of spot weld on top of spot weld. (Just using this as an example, don't @ me). The real key skill here is being able to use the knowledge gained through tutorials flexibly by adapting it to serve your purposes in your own projects. When I was just getting started, I found that I'd do tutorials because I didn't know enough to know what sort of things I actually cared about and wanted to build.

[@smithshaw1151]

That absolute makes sense. Tutorials do help when you already know what you're doing!

[@mytechnotalent]

Tuts aren't bad but if you don't actually CODE then you will never really learn to do something on your own. I use tuts but also docs but where I have learned most is actually doing.

[@spidermanlift4527]

When I watch tutorials, I do at the same time. It helps me a lot, but the tutorial in my case was faster than the docs because it showed something specific.

[@gubgub45]

That's actually how I got into coding and trying to hone my skills. Learning using a book to build out a game, then take that and moving into building a game that is custom. Funny that XNA/C# got mentioned in this take!

[@RealRatchet]

I'm more into taking an existing codebase and breaking it to see what happens when it comes to learning. I can't really learn reading, copying or warching something.

[@woolfel]

I've spent many years training new engineers right out of college and in open source. What I found works best to prepare people for a job is working on a real project with a team. Having a real business user, defining the tasks, making estimates, building the app, giving demos and delivering the final product is what gets people ready to work. Software engineering is about solving business problems and working with business people. Coding is just the tool you use to actualize the solution, but it's one part. Learning how to ask good questions and figure out what the business users want vs need is critical.

[@paxdriver]

I keep looking for channels to step through docs and help people with language and concepts in the docs. Now gpt with docs is amazing I don't even mess with tuts anymore, and I've been doing tuts since the 90's

[@datboi_gee]

One of the best things I think someone dealing with "tutorial hell" (which is apparently a thing now) can do is to step through the code they just copied down and comment in detail every single action that's taking place within their script, at least with new-ish concepts. This way they can affirm for themselves that they've understood what's going on within the code, and they can reference it later when they're tempted to lean on prior work to solve new problems.

[@aoshifo]

What works great for me is to first follow the tutorial to the letter. That's how I get a feel for the new language/framework/whatever. Then I add a feature, that's not part of the tutorial, to understand how to put things together and to really learn how to use it.

[@RamkrishanYT]

This is why I never watch KZbin tutorials Instead i watch Netflix engineers react to random programming ideas which are entirely misread due to dyslexia

[@erikbaer4472]

Following tutorials and coding along got me from 0 knowledge to senior infra consultant at a leading global IT consultancy.. sure it is not all there is to it. But you can really make it work in your favour

[@Kane0123]

Consulting is just a if else. Either you work for a company where you spout best practice info which doesn’t require any knowledge (aka architecture strategy) or you’re in the most nitty gritty roles where you take a company from zero to hero. If you’re in the latter I’d suggest you’re discounting how much you’ve learned dealing with niche use cases on the job.

[@jonathanduck5333]

When you are watching at 2x speed and ThePrimeagen increases his watch speed 👀👀

[@lmajstorovic]

I've been watching tutorials and they taught me nothing. Never had motivation to finish one fully, they're huge... What actually propelled me was a literal hell of an academy in uni where I didn't know where my head was. The stuff I was just learning was already considered basic knowledge there. I pushed through it, struggled so bad, but learned so much even though I missed like 60% of the content they taught.

[@ajalanbrown2200]

3:03 bro lightbulb moment for me. So true years ago go I was lost as far as what the tutorials are doing. Now it’s like “interesting I never thought of doing it that way”.

[@user-iv5sl2dn3r]

According to my thoughts . If you are learning something from a tutorial but do not apply this to your work or do not practice them by looking at the official documentation , then you are definitely wasting your time and efforts but if you are learning from a tutorial and continuously applying it and also reading the documentation then it's a gem and that's what I do and it does save me a lot of time then by just learning by reading the docs .😁😎 I don't say that you must always rely on tutorial but it's a great push to start and avoid general mistakes or getting trapped in endless error loop 👍🧐

[@Murv]

I almost never do "guided project" tutorials. I'd recommend tutorials such as "how to get started with ", max 30-45 min length. And skip through them just to the parts that weren't fully / easily covered in the docs. (Just seeing someone set up a default project and some basic structures is often better than official docs in my opinion) After that you have to explore yourself to really learn.

[@BruceNJeffAreMyFlies]

There are many different ways that people learn. What works GREAT for me does not work great for everyone. Some people will not pick things up very quickly or very thoroughly through reading documentation. Some people need to learn by watching others, or by listening, or by doing themselves. Documentation is great, and it is, TO SOME DEGREE, for everyone. But it is not the way that everyone should learn to do a new thing.

[@user-oi3on6on3l]

Docs and Tutorials are two seperate things. If you know exactly what you need, just search the docs, but oftentimes, especially at the early stages of learning, it's hard to know exactly what you need, what the best thing for your use case is, and how it fits in with the language. Documentation is there to document, tutorials are there to teach.

[@Tobsson]

First project in a new domain. Follow a tutorial in that domain. Try and build something new and use the tutorial as reference. Try and build something else with documentation as reference instead of the tutorial. This is something that takes me through introduction, what standard libraries will be relevant and if there is any package thats recommended, what the flow structure looks like and have enough knowledge to actually understand the docs. As someone who has a hard time reading in on stuff I need to get a grasp about the concept before even understanding the docs, but this worked great for me.

[@TheHTMLCode]

As long as the content in a tutorial is good, then it’s up to the consumer how much value they can take from it. If you’re just blindly following tutorials and not understanding the material then sure, you won’t take much from it But if you “study the tutorial” I believe there’s a lot of value to be extracted. As always there’s no such thing as a single learning path for everyone For me, I learn far quicker by watching someone work through a problem and then apply what I’ve watched to a similar problem.

[@jwlzloff26]

Rust Book taught me so much about programming and now i feel comfortable to take every next step i need to do for my hobby projects :3!

[@tc2241]

Tutorials are amazing. Bad tutorials ruin your growth. Tutorials that fail to explain anything, are surface level, provide zero jumping off points, and are essentially copypasta

[@disguysn]

Ugh. I hate the copypasta ones.

[@NathanHedglin]

You don't truly learn until you build things on your own though

[@kaanozk]

İ would say a tutorial provides just enough of a navigation/structure, so you can create on your own

[@Deemo_codes]

I use tutorials when I know what I want to do, but don't know how to do it. I see how they solve the problem in the tutorial and I apply that to my problem. I think some people get stuck where what they want to do is too broad (I want to make a website), or they don't know what they want to do so just follow tutorials hoping that inspiration will strike

[@vitiok78]

I am too curious, impatient, and get excited very fast. So I just can't wait and start coding long before the tutorial ends. I never watched any tutorial till the end. And I didn't know that this is the right way to do it. Our flaws can become our advantages sometimes...

[@szabolcsmate5254]

Also, a lot of online stuff helps you when you are a complete beginner. But it's harder to find stuff that helps you once you are beyond the basics. Like how to apply basic scills onto an already existing complex project that you have to work on.

[@BeefIngot]

I've never 4ewlly been all that great at following along with courses. Its like maybe my brain is broken but it just feels Soo much like I'm doing nothing work that I'd rather half finish a mediocre project bashing my head through the documentation of whatever the thing is than watch a tutorial/doing a course. The sorta downside to this is that when something seems exceedingly/needlessly complex or ever changing I never get around to it (can't be bothered learning react for instance when svelte exists). I think an upside is that I feel like hey, I can make _a_ thing. It's scrappy, but damn it, I sure read those docs and slapped that keyboard.

[@justiceessiel6123]

I have become a fan of this channel you speak sense and make me laugh❤😂😂

[@InfiniteQuest86]

I like how Prime mentions the bookshelf as if it is real and not a fake background.

[@edwardkelly1262]

personally I think I have learned a lot form copiolet/chat gpt from doing a project and hitting a wall like "I know it should be able to do X but I am not sure how" ask it and then asking gpt for how to do it. I think it is helpful when you know the basics of a language/coding but are missing a lot of small details.

[@alexaneals8194]

I learned programming by copying code from a book and then modifying it to see what would happen. I had TI-58 calculator and there were some game tutorials that fascinated me as a kid. Later, I got some game tutorials for TRS 80 computer. So, you can learn to code from a tutorial. Of course back in 1979 there were no cheap video tutorials.

[@joesilvareality]

Question from a beginner; if you have a vision of what you want to build and then find various tutorials on the different elements/features of, say a simple game, what aligns in your vision and then stitch all those together is that somewhere on the right track or still tutorial hell?

[@leshommesdupilly]

KZbin recommended me "How to make pron in Blender". I was powerless !!

[@EatonEmmerich]

The docs sell the vapour in the non-vapourware products too.

[@complextheory]

I started with TheNewBoston Java Android tutorials in 2015 and I've been a Senior Android developer for almost 8 years now.. i already had taken a Java and a 2 C++ classes beforehand but those tutorials were awesome i really think it depends on the tutorial.

[@axk2079]

"the difference between, understanding something, being able to talk about something, and being a master of it. And to be a master, it takes intense effort, to become great at something."

[@jackiedaytona1017]

You said the magic words, XNA. Man, I love that framework so much.

[@CR3271]

9:20 What good is hitting the pause button first? If I knew how to do something, I wouldn't need a tutorial. This is literally the way the whole education system works. We start by mimicking examples, studying them to understand how and why they work, and then use that knowledge to solve new problems.

[@Matthew-tb9yt]

In my own experience, coding tutorials (coding along) do have their place. They can be really helpful when learning a new language/framework/tooling/etc from scratch. For example: setting up your development environment, your first .NET project... high level things like that. They can also offer guidance for more advanced things like learning certain design and architecture patterns when planning your project. However, that requires putting full faith in the fact that not all coding tutorials are infallible of bugs, design flaws, bad habits, and of other decisions. Thus, it helps to remain open minded of the fact that coding tutorials can sometimes be equal parts openly helpful and subtilty problematic, in that you'll be able to learn how to use your intuition when figuring out those differences when you see them.

[@GuitarWithBrett]

I realized in this video one reason I like your content is your impatience

[@NeoShameMan]

I don't use tutorials for learning but for familiarization, i just chain rhem in the background until jargon and shortcut became natural. THEN I start paying attention and applying knowledge from various source.

[@asagiai4965]

There are two types of tutorial (including tech) Introductory --> It doesn't mean beginner btw. It just mean it is an introduction to something. Most of these tutorials are generalized. And the examples are abstract. Specific --> Are for specific topic, and usually go deeper. sometimes presenter of this topic gives a tidbit of information why he/she did what he/she did. Both have advantages and disadvantages you have to know which one you need.

[@soundrightmusic]

I convert tutorials into other languages or frameworks. So I might do a Svelte tutorial but build it in Vue. This allows me to have something cool to build but I need to understand what's happening to convert it into a different context.

[@adambickford8720]

I just need enough to get 'hello world' off the ground. Once there, i can break and fix it repeatedly until i grok it. At that point i'll search around for specific things that i'm inferring incorrectly or try to understand why my intuition was wrong.

[@alexuk1919]

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." -Benjamin Franklin

[@MrDaAsif]

When I do tutorials I try to take my time and really make sure I understand what's been said, maybe experiment before going to the next part

[@eyehear10]

“I’ll do anything to learn to code except for coding several hours every day”

[@joakimrosenfeldt9530]

I always start by watching fireships "x in 100 seconds" and then I apply for senior dev positions for that language

[@arcanernz]

7:23 there's a huge difference between documentation that someone handwrites (or semi-generates) with care and understanding and docs that are generated from code with no context or comments. If I wanted to look at a function signature with zero comments I'd just open up the source code. Docs have a target audience and sometimes it requires the reader to have a minimum level of familiarity before it makes sense and that's where tutorials can be very helpful. But I often see new developers never even attempt to look at the official documentation and that's probably where tutorials are less useful and more a crutch.

[@TheExileFox]

We need a tutorial for ThePrimeagen about how to stop calling SQL "squeal" - if your database is making a squealing sound, I think you have more severe issues than needing to add lubricant.

[@devmentordave]

LOL A friend just sent me this link. Thanks for the kind words. I certainly don't think I've got a corner on the market, so great feedback!

[@christiang.8880]

For me a tutorials always been am starting point if i dont know what the fuzz is all about. If i like what i am seeing i get to work and start with the documtaion. Typing 3 lines of code helped me more then looking at someone typing 1000 lines of code. A tutorial is waste of time without follow up. I started VIM Fundamentals on frontendmasters and i absolutely love it. But If i am not following it up myself i will stay at 2-3 apm or i will stop using it. But i love the speed of prime, why talk slow if you can pause, go back an replay. Cant wait for your HTMX stuff

[@russelllapua4904]

Try the 5:1 method. For every 1 hour you're learning something new, spend 5 hours practicing with it. And stick to learning that one thing in the hour (example), don't spend like 15 minutes each learning bits, you'll not retain anything as you're trying to practice.

[@Redlabel0]

@2:17 the same can be said about all education medium... be it apprenticeships, what thou willst; you cannot learn in others people's heads

[@Kane0123]

I loved KZbin videos for 101 type content but the presenter is critical - gives me context and a vibe for what kind of stuff is possible, that way I can navigate docs and google questions properly.

[@CristianKirk]

It's different for each person. Most tutorials are not about programming, but about certain languages or frameworks, so you already have to know the programming logic in order to make use of a tutorial.

[@ErazerPT]

Do agree... Tutorials are great when you already have a decent grasp of what is going on. Because you can fast scan for what you're looking for, extract that info and go apply it where you need it. The problem imho is that right now, there's VERY LITTLE focus on getting the "first principles" right. You know, boring stuff like data types, flow control, cycles, etc... Yeah, so 70's... But without those, you'll soon find people resorting to the age old memes of cargo cult programming and shotgun debugging because said people DON'T actually grep the fundamentals and are at a loss on why THEIR use case falls apart when the preconditions change.

[@stackercoding2054]

Tutorials are gold when you start to learn how to code because you get easily confused by a lot of stuff, but once you actually get the grasp of how computers and code in general works, tutorials just slow you down and that's when you start to look for the official docs instead. I think its just a life cycle for everyone who works in anything related with computers.

[@ellie-oaks]

Some times it takes timea do find the right source, but eventually i find and progress 👀 We learn from tutorials when we start to changing things and understand how its works and fixing erros along the way. Yep, if you copy and paste on you code and do nothing more than that, the knowledge is vary limited, but I don't know about you guys, but I'm usually changing things the way I like, or applying to my situation because the tutorial isn't exactly based on my case. But I'm already working. So I'm doing my task and trying to solved errors and bug along the way.

[@embiem_]

Tutorials helped me a lot. It provided me the guardrails when starting out. But these guardrails have to be broken by yourself.

[@iCrimzon]

Tutorials go hard, its what you do after that matters, I personally implement what I learned but relying on the tutorial less the 2nd time, then when I implement said function in another project, rely on the tutorial less than the 2nd time, eventually you can do it on your own

[@MrHaggyy]

Well i think tutorials are great when you want to get started with something new you need. Or if you want to refresh a skill you haven't used in a while. One type of person listens all the was through and tries to get the hang of it. The other person zooms through the content and wherever you find something you are not 100% sure about you let that sink in one more time. Also i think when you are in Junior a good book is far better. You can pace it as fast and slow as you like and they usually have the better exercises.

[@eritert]

I do that sometimes with tutorials - do my own semi-related thing. it's dangerous though bc you can get lost and frustrated if its too ambitious

[@shikyokira3065]

The most important thing a beginner should learn is GCS. Having a goal, and then break it down into several categories from that goal, then followed by breaking each category into several setups you think you need to do. Goal > Categories > Steps Bigger goal tends to have more categories due to its complexity. Tutorial can only teach the steps not the categorization. What separates senior programmers from junior programmers is their ability to categorize better. Better categorization helps you reduce the steps you need to take

[@IAMTHESWORDtheLAMBHASDIED]

lolol no no what you just said, "knowing how to do something makes tutorials better" or something damn I'm blitzed, anyways, I got ya right away, only recently tho. I haven't done a tutorial in months due to just working on my own apps which I've been lost in and needed to refresh a little bit and holy shit the difference is substantial lolol

[@Impatient_Ape]

As a former university educator, I can say that too often, commercial sources of online tutorials/courses are generally poor ways to try to learn something, mainly because they have too few projects. At best, they should be considered survey courses or "Intros" to a topic. Even in real-life physical University courses, you will NOT master a subject without doing a lot of homework or multiple projects which make you frustrated and challenge you to stop regurgitating things. Quizzes in tutorials might seem OK, but they really only test your short-term memory; they don't often test for a deeper understanding of how concepts are interconnected like projects do. If you feel that you DO benefit from online course/tutorials, then I suggest you seek out courses that require a a bunch of work on your part. OR come up with a few projects of your own to practice what you're learning and try to make them work. Don't aim for perfection -- seek experience.

[@user-zs1hm1cy8u]

When I follow a tutorial, I watch all of it upfront, take notes, and then try to replicate what he did without watching the tutorial again. For me this is the way to get the most value out of any tutorial.

[@epsilon-less-than-0]

Yea, i learned this from one of my college maths teachers. He used to prove theorems in front of us while explaining to us his thought process. He got us into the habit of writing notes about the "why"s and not just the "how"s. Then, he would ask us to reproduce the proof he did, and once we did it, he would eleminate the conditions and adjust the theorem to make the it stronger in order to ask us a for a proof, or he would give us a different exercice but with the same patterns of the proof. He used to say: "You might think that by reproducing my proof, it's just memorizing and not real understanding. And you're right... but every real understanding we experienced started with memorizing, we just forgot that process of memorizing we went through once we really understood it"

[@thisbridgehascables]

Most docs read like someone kept getting distracted and never provided an example of actual implementation. It’s like mentioning a Class but forgetting to provide what functions it contains or what arguments it expects.. Sure if you go diving into the source code for days and piece it together sure.. I have in the past just picked a language and tried building something.. you can only get so far on assumptions before needing some entry level tutorial to at least give you a clear basis for the syntax or core functions.

[@bearwolffish]

Some people got access to a search engine and stopped being able to read a manual. Makes you wonder what effect using chat gpt as a solver will have.

[@BozCoding]

Yup, got to f... around and find out with a language/tool/framework etc that'll help

[@Luclecool123]

Don't read the docs, read the code! The docs are outdated, code is law.

[@radspiderjackson]

As someone who feels like I've invented a whole new circle of tutorial hell for myself, these videos telling people "tutorial bad" really needs to start giving the solution, and that solution shouldnt be "just start coding/creating". I personally return to tutorials all the time with the hopes of picking up essential foundations that would allow me to 'think like a programmer' and not have to return to tutorials but the issue is that most tutorials focus on getting something done as opposed to really teaching how that something is done. I watched a video on this channel recently where @ThePrimeTime stated that he felt he had it easier learning things in the past as opposed to the overwhelming amount of information and choices a beginner has to deal with today and i felt that strongly.

[@radspiderjackson]

I mean he mentions it in this reaction, "tutorials are really good if you already know what youre doing" and thats because most creators of these tutorials are so far removed from being a beginner themselves that they just sort of expect you to understand somethings right out the gate.

[@raiguard]

I hate to break it to you, but the reason that everyone says "just start coding" is because that is truly the only solution. You're not going to learn something without actually doing it. If you need project ideas, then recreate things that already exist without looking at their code. Start simple and work your way up. That will teach you 10000x quicker than a tutorial ever could.

[@radspiderjackson]

you miss my point i think, because to just start coding isn't REALLY even an option when youre truly lost. And this is what i mean, most who give this advice are so far removed from being a beginner themselves that they just expect a certain baseline knowledge to be understood. I can say from experience that just know what functions, variables, and conditionals are isn't enough to just start. even a basic understanding of data structures and algorithms isnt enough. With that said, there are people who really just need to abandon the tutorials and start but that doesnt always apply@@raiguard

[@pkavenger9990]

After doing a tutorial, I do my own project or modify the existing tutorial project and try something new.

[@erikslorenz]

My issue with tutorials is that in my actual work my main issue is poorly documented apis, poorly documented libraries, etc. You don't just deal with Stripe. It's difficult. I need to make things rock solid on my own.

[@ssbsk6571]

My philosophy is to rather google a tutorial on how to make X app, google smaller things that you need to know/build that will get you to X app. For example, if you want to know how to make a todo app, do not google a tutorial, work out in your head what exactly goes into making one, try to start building it yourself , and google your specific problems when you run into them.

[@Slimurgical]

It's like how if you teach a carpenter how to make things by making benches, standing shelves, chairs or toolboxes and never teach them how the basic parts work.