How do you guys deal with tutorial hell?
Posted by stealth_Master01@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 25 comments
Hello everyone, it's been 6 months since I graduated from uni and things have not been well thanks to the job market. I have been applying for web dev positions and build a couple of projects. I initially started to build projects using MERN, then a couple of people i reached out to on Linkedin suggested me to pick Springboot on backend, since I already knew Java I picked it up [I am based in Canada and havent seen any Java pos that needs a Junior]. Springboot is much harder than I thought and is taking me a lot of time to build something. I do work part-time at a Costco, only get limited amount of time. Now im stuck in a situation where i feel i wasted my entire time learning stuff and not building anything worthy for my resume and feel more depressed about it. Has anyone faced this before? Any suggestions?
wichels@reddit
Im leaving here this: no time used learning something is wasted
SamiAlghamdi@reddit
Yes, it is a common problem for all people who do informal programming learning on their own. I have authored two papers on this and recently created tools to help. If you wish to try them, see the blog: https://self-regulate-online.blogspot.com/2024/11/invitation.html?m=1
andrejmlotko@reddit
I started my journey by doing, i simply realized I can't learn anything if I only watch other do it, so I started writing code, reading documentation and experimenting. That's it. Good luck!
daymanVS@reddit
How could you possibly be in tutorial hell after graduation?
Spiritual_Writing235@reddit
how could you possibly think this was a good question??
high_throughput@reddit
Is this tutorial hell, or the lack of a sufficiently complex and polished entry for your portfolio?
Like, would you be able to write something without a tutorial if you had the time, or would you not know where to start?
stealth_Master01@reddit (OP)
It is somewhere in between, I start a new component on my own and then things get complicated and I go back to tutorial to continue finishing it. But I end up watching more and more tutorials to see if there is a better solution and end up getting stuck.
fuddlesworth@reddit
Watching videos is why you are in tutorial hell.
Learn how to learn.
Cammat001@reddit
Sorry, can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by learn how to learn?
crazy_cookie123@reddit
If you were learning a hands-on skill like welding or guitar, would you think watching youtube videos of other people welding or playing the guitar constitutes learning? Probably not - it's obvious to most people that learning a hands on skill requires you to sit there and practice. What people don't always realise is that programming is one of these hands on skills, it's not something you can learn by watching someone else code or by memorising syntax. Just like with welding or playing guitar, the way to learn is to sit there and practice, and because programming at its core is problem solving that means practicing without using tutorials.
fuddlesworth@reddit
This. Its also learning how to read documentation. API documentation is probably the most important resource. You need to learn how to use these.
Also learning to Google your problem. How do I do X in Y? Videos aren't going to have all these answers.
Architect6@reddit
Are you breaking the whole problem down logically?
jackdevuk@reddit
Finding the best way to do something straight away is the biggest hinderance in progressing, just do what you THINK is the most optimum and efficient; make a note if you probably think there is a better way then go back over and understand what you could have changed moving forward. Either by googling problems or asking someone.
jackdevuk@reddit
Finding the best way to do something straight away is the biggest hinderance in progressing, just do what you THINK is the most optimum and efficient; make a note if you probably think there is a better way then go back over and understand what you could have changed moving forward. Either by googling problems or asking someone.
Corlinck@reddit
It's normal, with programming you're going to keep feeling like you're drowning till something snaps in place. Go check on LinkedIn which language has more positions (.Net vs Spring Boot vs NodeJs vs Python) so you can narrow your focus, then I would recommend one of two methods:
Open Source Projects check for open source projects in that language, pick a reasonably basic one that has known issues and start working through the code and figuring out how everything works and try to find solutions for one of the issues. Working on an existing project to gain an understanding will definitely give you a good baseline, after that you can start thinking about building a project from scratch or just move to working on more difficult projects at first
Tutorial Deepdive Most people approach tutorials mindelessly and end up learning nothing, when I was a junior I found a different approach useful. When you start the tutorial, take notes while at the intro stage and make sure you know what you're building. When the tutorial starts, listen to what should be done and watch how they did it, of you don't understand suffieciently you might want to watch it over a couple of times, then try to do it yourself and only go back to the tutorial when you weren't able to progress for 30min. Might feel tedious, but this forces you to think for yourself and makes it easier to remember and understand everything better when you use the tutorial. Then, after finishing the tutorial, decide on a similar application you'd like to build and plan as thoroughly as you can. Since it's similar you can still go back to the code you wrote for the tutorial when you get stuck, but overall you should be able to do a bit more yourself. From there you can decide on a bigger project, start planning and then build it. You can repeat this till you only need planning and Google to build a project
Since the job market isn't great at the moment, start doing freelancing on the side after you're able to build projects without tutorials
just_a_tiny_phoenix@reddit
Not sure how good this actually is (haven't tried it, but intend to do so at some point), but www.boot.dev/prime might have a curriculum for you that actually helps you find a job. That's the whole premise of the program, which is why I'm suggesting it, even though you said you're on tutorial hell. You can also read all the material first, before paying the subscription (which gets you the interactive parts). It's mainly for the back end though, not sure if this is your thing. The "/prime" is a promo code from streamer ThePrimeagen (also one of the teachers on the site), which gives you a 25% discount. Oh and I believe the "how to actually find a job" module is completely free, so you might want to check that out either way. Good luck!
Think_Brilliant_9619@reddit
I work at Costco also I was going to do web dev now I just passed ncle and abo and am a licensed optician. You have to relocate with the job bank but now 35 an hour full time.
eldogorino@reddit
Things really clicked for me after I built a big project. I learned so much from that process. Build some sort of interactive website. Maybe find an interesting dataset that you can do something with.
Novaxxxxx@reddit
I have faced it before. It can be quite hard to understand what you're actually doing when you're coding.
I have a web dev job using a PHP framework and js. After university I felt like I didn't have a great understanding of what I was doing.
I spent time learning c# MVC and made a pretty robust project and tried to follow best practices. I am still new to the field, but feel like when I am tasked with something I don't feel completely lost anymore.
Spend time making a project, and read documentation. If you want to create something, don't watch a video from start to finish copying their code. Take useful information as needed, and try to solve the problem by yourself. Documentation exists as a manual to help developers, and I feel most people don't want to take time out of their day to read it.
NVA4D@reddit
Something similar happened to me while learning Machine Learning.
Try building an exciting project for you, something you want to develop, not mainly because of your portfolio. Whenever you don't understand something, go ahead and learn about that topic, or go on with the project and write down that topic to dive into it later.
I'm still doing this with ML, recently worked on a project I liked about sentiment analysis with movie reviews and enjoyed it a lot! (learned far more than with other projects)
wogvorph@reddit
This is why I stopped learning how to code after 2 years. I wasn't aware you need creativity and interests so I couldn't find any project to make that would be interesting to me. And when I was seeking advice this was the most common answer.
bocchi123@reddit
hey, im trying to get into ML as well. ive just scratched the surface by starting my learning journey on python programming via MOOC from the university of helenski. did you follow or know of any roadmaps? im not exactly sure what i should do after the course outside of getting into leetcode and such.
Pale_Height_1251@reddit
Build a project.
heroyi@reddit
You are trying to buy the tools before even knowing what you are trying to build. So your projects and emotions are going to feel all half baked and directionless.
Find a project like some said that you would be mildly interested in and then try to build. Doesn't matter if it is shitty like a web page that says hello world on a click of a button. Then slowly add to it for expansion like using spring boot if you want with some DB and cloud hosting. Focus on doing proof of concept.
Like I needed to make a script that would access my dropbox. I started baby steps by just trying to make sure I can access the api, then accessing my dropbox despite not programmatically having the token created.
Sounds shitty? Yea. That's the point. Make sure the foundation is good then you can focus on building it up. Now I have a full implementation of the oauth token to fully access my dropbox folder.
Will this solve cancer? No. But it has a useful function I built for someone.
Trying to build things just because you feel like you need to for a career is the absolute worst way. You won't learn anything nor will you relish. Instead you will come to hate it much like where you are on
TimeSpacePilot@reddit
Hello World