Escape Tutorial Hell Tips

2021-05-31

Brad Traversy

Following a tutorial is only half the battle. Searching things, looking things up, testing things out, debugging, that's the other half and you only get that by creating your own projects.

Whenever you watch a tutorial or course, deconstruct the concept of the project.

It's not about building the tutorial (projects), it's all about what you've learned while building it.

Tips

  • Write down and understand the concepts
    • How to connect to a database
    • Structure the application
    • Create UI
    • Connect UI to the backend
    • Host the app from a hosting site
  • Proper way to learn a tutorial and get the most out of it
    • Watch it
    • Really understand it
    • Go through the whole thing, and grasp the concept
    • Then build something else from it!
  • Combine one tutorial with another tutorial
    • Take the concept of todo app tutorial
    • Add the concept from an auth tutorial
    • Combine them and build something else from it
  • Look through other people's code
    • Understand it
    • Google certain methods you don't understand
    • Figure out how it works
  • Stick with certain set of technology (stack)
    • Choose a language or a framework, find what's easiest for you, and stick with it
    • You don't need to learn every single tech
    • Stick with what you wanna do
  • Join a community
    • meetup
    • meet people
  • Check documentation
  • Contribute to open source
  • Start Working!

The GOAL is never to stop watching tutorials, but to make it more efficient with the learning process.