DEV Community: R Akshay

If Watching Tutorials Was a Skill, I’d Be a Senior Developer by Now

R Akshay — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 09:03:32 +0000

"YouTube Tutorials: My Toxic Relationship"

So the story begins like this:

You wake up one fine day and say:

“Today I will finally learn React / Node / Docker / Convex / Whatever.”

Motivation = 100%

Confidence = 200%

Brain = ready to absorb knowledge like a sponge 🧽

So naturally... you open YouTube.

And type with Olympic-level precision:

"BEST beginner tutorial for X (updated, no nonsense, practical)"

Because obviously, you deserve only the perfect one.

Not just any tutorial.

The perfect tutorial.

🎬 The Tutorial Rabbit Hole

You find one video.

Looks promising.

But then…

👉 You notice another video from a different creator.

👉 With better thumbnails.

👉 And more likes.

👉 And comments like: "Bro changed my life."

So you watch 3 minutes of the first tutorial…

then switch to the second.

Then a third.

Then a playlist titled:

"Learn X in 1 hour (2025) — no bs, full stack, deploy, free hosting, API, database, payment setup, and your life sorted."

Somewhere in this loop your brain whispers:

"Maybe I should learn this OTHER thing first… before learning the thing I actually wanted to learn."

And suddenly you're watching:

Git basics
CSS animations
How to build an AI SaaS
Someone unboxing a keyboard (???)

Time spent searching: 45 minutes

Time spent watching: 13 minutes

Time spent coding: 0 seconds

Productivity?

A cinematic masterpiece.

🤦 Why Do We Do This?

We want the perfect starting point
We are scared of choosing the wrong resource
We think the tutorial will magically teach us everything
And deep down… we hope learning can be done without struggling

Spoiler:

The perfect tutorial doesn’t exist.

But your progress does.

📌 Watching ≠ Learning

This one hurts a little:

Just because you watched a tutorial doesn’t mean you learned the skill.

Real learning starts when:

You pause the video
You type the code
You break the code
You fix the code
You cry a little
And eventually… it works 🎉

That moment teaches more than 20 videos ever will.

🧠 The Simple Fix

Here’s what helped me:

✨ Pick ONE tutorial

✨ Watch it actively

✨ Code along

✨ Build something yourself after finishing

✨ Resist the urge to hop to the next shiny video

You won’t feel ready.

Do it anyway.

Most devs build confidence after, not before, they start.

🧭 A Small Challenge for You

The next time you pick a tutorial, tell yourself:

“I will stick to one video until I finish it.”

Not perfect.

Not fastest.

Just one.

Because consistency beats perfection every time.

🎯 Final Thoughts

If you’ve ever spent more time searching tutorials than actually learning… congratulations.

You’re human.

And you’re definitely a developer.

Just remember:

Tutorials don’t make you better. Building does.

So close YouTube (after finishing this blog 😌), open your editor, and start.

You got this. 🚀

The story ends like all the relationship i never had:

Dear Tutorials: It’s Not You, It’s Me (Actually It’s You)

💬 Have you ever been stuck in the tutorial rabbit hole?

Share your story — let’s suffer and grow together. 😄

Self-Doubt as a Developer: Am I Even Doing This Right? 🤡

R Akshay — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 11:52:08 +0000

So there I was… typing code, staring at errors, and asking myself one important question:

"Is this really for me, or should I start a potato farm instead?"

If you’ve ever felt this way, congratulations — you are officially a developer. 🎉

Because nobody told us that learning to code comes with a free lifetime subscription to self-doubt.

😶 Where Self-Doubt Shows Up (aka developer horror moments)

When your code doesn’t work and you have no idea why
When you see someone on LinkedIn getting a job at Google at 19
When a tutorial says “This is simple” and your brain says “404: Simplicity Not Found”
When you copy code from Stack Overflow and it still fails 💔

At some point, every dev has thought:

“Maybe I’m just not smart enough for this.”

If you haven’t yet, don’t worry — your moment is coming. 😌

☕ My Experience (aka me vs my brain)

A while ago, I was learning new tools, building projects, and job hunting. Then suddenly:

Self-doubt entered the chat.

It told me things like:

“You’re too slow.”
“You’re not learning enough.”
“Everyone else is ahead.”
“Are you sure you should be doing this?”

Some days, it felt like I wasn’t moving at all… even though I was learning something.

And trust me, that feeling is very real.

📌 The Comparison Trap

We don’t compare ourselves to our past versions.

No. We compare ourselves to:

That one dev who built 7 SaaS apps before breakfast
People who wake up at 5 AM, drink water, write code, meditate, stretch, and solve world hunger
YouTubers who build a full-stack app in 22 minutes

Meanwhile, we’re like:

“I just fixed one bug today. I deserve a trophy.” 🏆

💡 The Truth Nobody Says Loud Enough

No one knows everything.

Even seniors google stuff.

Even experts read documentation.

Even CTOs sometimes break production (and then quietly fix it at 3AM).

Development is not about knowing everything.

It’s about not giving up when you don’t know something.

🔧 What Actually Helped Me

Here are things that made my self-doubt manageable (not gone, just quieter):

✔ Building small projects (even tiny ones help)

✔ Writing/blogging about what I learn

✔ Accepting that it’s okay to learn slowly

✔ Taking breaks when my brain feels fried 🍳

✔ Talking to other devs and realizing… oh, we’re all confused!

🛠 Practical Tips if You’re Feeling This Too

✨ Stop comparing your Chapter 2 to someone’s Chapter 30

✨ Learning is not a race — it’s a process

✨ Celebrate small wins: one solved bug = progress

✨ Ask questions; it’s not a weakness

✨ Document your journey (blogs, notes, anything!)

🎯 Final Thoughts

If you’re doubting yourself right now, hear this:

You are not behind. You are not slow. You are learning.**

Every line of code you write — even the broken ones — counts.

So don’t quit. Take a break, drink some chai, come back, and keep going.

We’re all figuring it out together. 🚀

If this resonated with you, drop a comment or share your experience.

And if your brain ever tells you you’re not good enough, tell it:

“return ‘I am learning, and that’s enough.’” 🧡

🤦‍♂️ I Used to Hate Documentation... Until One Video Bullied Me Into Liking It

R Akshay — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 11:29:43 +0000

😒 Documentation and I Were Not Friends

Let me be honest:
If documentation was a person, I would block it on every platform.

I always found docs:

boring 😴

exhausting 😩

and somehow capable of draining the life out of me (not that I had much left anyway)

Since the beginning of my developer journey, my relationship with documentation looked like this:
Docs: "Read me."
Me: "No." opens YouTube

I avoided it like developers avoid writing tests.
And honestly, life was good... until it wasn’t.

📺 Then I Found The Video

I accidentally stumbled upon a livestream on Chai Aur Code (yes, 2–3 days late, as usual 🤓) where Hitesh Choudhary was learning a Backend-as-a-Service platform called Convex.

And what was he doing?

Just reading documentation.

I thought:

“Great, a video of someone reading documentation. This is peak entertainment.”
— Me, 2025

I had zero expectations, but I kept watching... and suddenly something strange happened.

I liked it.

No, really. I enjoyed a man reading docs on YouTube.
Please don't judge me 😭.

🔄 The Plot Twist: I Started Liking Documentation

Somewhere between:

reading the official Convex docs,

following along step-by-step,

and realizing the docs were actually helpful,

I felt something I never felt before:

✨ Documentation is not the enemy.

In fact, it started to feel… fun?

I know, I know, I’m scared too.

🧠 What Changed in My Brain?

I realized documentation is not a task you complete — it’s a superpower you unlock.

Documentation helps you:

✔ learn faster
✔ build without waiting for tutorials
✔ understand tech in a deeper way
✔ stop searching random Stack Overflow answers from 2012

It turns out the docs aren’t boring.
My approach was boring.

☕ Why That Chai Aur Code Stream Worked

Because it wasn’t about memorizing docs. It was about:

exploring

trying things

breaking things

fixing things

repeating

And watching Hitesh learn Convex from scratch showed me something important:

You don’t need to know everything.
You just need to know how to read the docs.

🛠 If You Also Hate Documentation, Try This

Here’s my new documentation ritual:

1️⃣ Don’t skim. Actually read.
2️⃣ Keep a playground project open next to docs 🧪
3️⃣ Try small examples immediately
4️⃣ Break something on purpose (fun guaranteed)
5️⃣ Google only after the docs fail you

🥂 Final Thoughts

Documentation and I still argue, but we’re trying therapy and things are improving.

I won’t say I’m a doc-lover now, but my mindset has changed, and honestly?

That’s a big win for me as a developer.

So here’s a toast to:

📚 Documentation — the thing we love to hate, but absolutely need.

🔗 If you want to see the video that converted me:

Search for Chai Aur Code + Convex on YouTube.
(Sending the link feels like I’m inviting you into a cult, so I’ll let you look it up yourself 😌)