If you've ever been down the coding tutorial route on YouTube, then you've also likely heard the following:
"Do not watch coding tutorials and just copy code... That's not how you learn"
I completely agree with this. Copying lines of code does not teach you the fundamental skills you need to become a programmer:
- Problem solving
- Comprehension
- Debugging & diagnostics
- ...
To be a good programmer; you have to not only understand what you're doing, but why you're doing it. Truthfully, that primarily comes from hands on experience.
That being said... I did stumble across a series on YouTube that is simply perfect for learning how to think like a programmer.
The reason I recommend this series is because it isn't just a 2 hour video where you learn little to nothing about why you're doing what you're doing. The videos were streamed live, and you witness every problem and thought process.
There are 86 videos in this series, some being up to over 3 hours long. The entirety of the project spanned over 4 years.
I've watched 13 of these videos and my mind has been opened as to the ways you can abstract your mind to code with precision to get the results you truly want.
I've hyped it up enough, so let me show you what he actually builds:
An entire operating system in the browser built with Next.js
- File system
- Session management
- Personalization/customization
- And so much more
He also has his own posts on here about this project as well:
- How I made a desktop environment in the browser
- Windows 10 Clone in the Browser | 9 Month Project Update
- After 1 year
Here are his links:
@dustinbrett
github/DustinBrett
github/DustinBrett/daedaIOS
Thank you to Dustin for sharing his project and thought processes for us who benefit greatly from learning this way.
If you want to learn how to code in and outside of the box (literally and figuratively), check out his series:
Top comments (4)
Thank you very much for mentioning my videos. I'm glad to hear you've gotten so much from them. I have plans to do many more in the 2020's about programming and my side project. Your article is definitely an inspiration for me to make more content.
this is awesome tbh - i always get more outta watching folks solve real stuff instead of those polished guides. you think it's the actual grind or just being forced to pick apart the hard bits that really levels things up?
If I was grinding out work (for anything, not necessarily coding related), what am I learning? Sure, how to do it faster, more efficient maybe... But it's when you come across a problem that you have to figure out how to solve - that's where the core of lessons are learned. :)
growth like this is always nice to see kinda makes me wonder what keeps stuff going long-term like, beyond just the early hype