"when will i be ready","oh i should learn this other language", "i need to learn everything about this language","i am not ready", "i'm done with this tutorial , i think i should watch another tutorial again", "Ahh!! i need to be perfect", "bookmarks 10 other tutorial to buy or watch again after successfully completing the first one", "i need to learn 7 different different tutorials on one language" etc...
If you are having more or even all of the thoughts above i'm sorry to inform you that you are in the tutorial hell
Hey don't beat yourself up most of us has been there even the very best of us. Most of this thoughts are because of insecurities and self-doubts but the good news is like every problem there is a solution. so id like to help you escape the tutorial hell with these some ways i personally used when i was once stuck there.
(nb- this results and advice are based on my personal opinion and experience)
What is Tutorial Hell ?
It’s a place where you keep doing the same thing over and over again without any guidance on how to break free from this cycle.
Completing tutorials make you feel great and it’s quite addictive to go and try to complete as many as possible. But when you try to do something similar without the guidance of the tutorial you will probably get stuck and won’t be able to keep going.
As a result, you decide to go out and follow another tutorial.
Definition credits:
why and How i got stuck in Tutorial Hell
I just finished Harvard's cs50 introduction to Computer science and got exposed to the possibilities of programming. i felt like i could create anything i want and was eager to start the journey of learning new things. i got some new web development tutorials online.
I was learning by watching videos and following along, so I spent a few months doing just that watching videos, rewriting the code and trying to get the same results. it felt great and enjoyed the process because Tutorials are risk-free i would literally follow the instructor code by code
But the issue was when I wanted to change the code to do something else or try to add a new feature Most of the times the changes that I added either broke the whole thing or didn’t do as I expected. that's when the famous impostor syndrome comes to mind too. The fear of being exposed as a fraud makes me keep doing tutorials until i felt "i'm ready"
When things didn’t work as i wanted I just ignore it and say to myself that I just needed to learn more. And off I went into another tutorial.
Escaping From Hell
This is the most import part of my journey to breaking free from tutorial hell because this is exactly want i did to escape
nb-"There is nothing wrong with using tutorials to learn new things. You just need to stop that urge of starting a new tutorial as soon as you finish the one you were working on"
Build Personal Projects
When you complete a tutorial, try to recreate the same code using only your memory or build a similar project but your style and feature. you will probably get stuck and when you do, this is where you learn how to google or ask stackoverflow/reddit for solutions to help fix your code
or might have to refer back to watch the tutorial again to firmly understand the concept By doing this, you will start understanding how the code falls into place and what sort of things you should practice more you will quickly learn how to work with a codebase and figure out what sort of things you might need to refactor and delete.
Coding Challenge
when you complete a tutorial on a given subject you should test yourself and see if you really understood the concept by doing coding challenges and test. some website i'm using are
code wars
freecodecamp
hackerrank
coding challenges enhances your problem-solving skills which is a valuable skill every programmer needs.
Read other peoples code and contribute to open source
The open source community provides a great opportunity for aspiring programmers to distinguish themselves and by contributing to various projects, you can improve your skills and get inspiration and support from like-minded people. But most importantly, you can prove that you can build fantastic experiences that people love.
By doing this it will expose you to different styles of solving problems and it will enhance your knowledge of coding rather sitting all day going through a tutorial and not actually doing anything with what you learned.
follow this steps and you might fully escape tutorial hell just like i did but if you don't and need further in depth details check my recommended list below
Personal recommendations to read or watch more contents about escaping tutorial hell:
Escape Tutorial Hell & Utilize Them In A Better Way
Tutorial Hell
how to escape from Tutorial Hell and never come back
if you have more steps/advice and questions please engage at the comment section.
thanks for reading!
Top comments (1)
Thanks for linking my article, I'm happy it was useful to you :)