A crucial part for any dev to stay relevant and competitive in the field is to pick-up new technologies fast.
What is your usual approach to learning a new tech?
- Do you start right away with studying Official docs?
- Do you first check some YouTube tutorials, read some blog posts to get an overall insight?
- Do you prefer to browse some open-source projects and experiment in online playgrounds to explore the practical side?
- Or do you usually start the project with minimal knowledge and search for something only when the necessity arises?
Top comments (10)
I generally check the doc, read some blog posts and in parallel write a proof of concept.
Once done, if I really want to learn it, I build an app, a prototype or a tool with it. Developing a project I will really use make me dive deeper.
I generally start with a tutorial which is relatively similar to what I am trying to achieve. Get that partially up and running, and then hack together the rest of the solution from a mix of the documentation, tutorials, and StackOverflow.
That way, if something doesn't quite work, I can remove some of the bits I've hacked together and see if it works as it gets closer and closer to the tutorial or documentation.
It's working so far as I continue to learn Vue as part of a real-world project.
I first check video/written tutorial to see the capabilities and possibilities as well as general ways of "doing things" in the perticular tech. If that's not available I check the docs for some examples. Then I try to find an idea which is interesting for me to work on , and incorporates the tech, and start working on it, searching for things in docs, stack overflow , DEV or other blogs as I need them.
I think you're asking two different questions.
1) How do I become aware of new tech
2) How do I learn to use new tech
For the first, I use this site, daily.dev/, and when I'm in stackoverflow and someone links to a repo or mentions a technology I haven't heard of I check out their website (or repo).
Second, I do a combination of things but it always ends with me doing a small project with that tech. It's the only way I can get it into my bones.
I often find myself using daily.dev too much, I don't know if that's a good thing 😄😄
Most of the time what I do is learning by doing. So, basically, if I had just come across an interesting technology that was completely new to me, I would have imagined a fantastic project that would not make sense to create with all my current knowledge, but seemed promising after glancing at the overview on its official website. Then I will try to make it blindly, I will randomly read the related documentation and also concepts that I need. It's just that, it's a lot of fun for me. Although in the end, you should also know, I didn't managed to finish it all. But getting into trouble, trying crazy approaches, is a great way to learn, for me. Learning is boring if we cannot find the pleasure inside.
Of course, the novelty should interest me. If I wasn't really interested, I'll usually try to make it happen by seeing people make great things around the idea. If I really wasn't interested, I would just remember the names and abilities, if only I would occasionally need them.
If something was not really new, I would try to bury all my knowledge of comparable old technology, making it look inferior to this new one. If I could, I would forget completely what I have right now. That way, I can fairly judge this new one, see if there is any point in studying more deeply to replace the approach that I have been doing. Accepting new things is difficult if we don't want to be humble.
Sorry, if in the end I can't give you an answer. I'm just happy to talk. But that's what I'm doing, or at least that's what I'm going to do. Also after learning by doing, we can start trying to learn by teaching.
The trick, in the beginning, is not to lift something you can't carry, I guess 😉
I would fully check the description on what the tech is trying to solve, and ask myself, is there any problem I have with my current (or any other) projects that would require me to use this thing?
If not, then I just don't. I honestly don't think you can pick things up fast while still being reasonable, plus, you can just learn it as you go.
This "not always caring about new tech" is important, there'll be a time where your life is just so busy that you can't afford to learn, use and maintan said tech. It's better to just watch from the sidelines.
If it's something worth trying, then I would always vouch learning by doing, and for me that's churning through the example code and projects, and making a project of your own that implements said tech.
I think from those example you can quickly judge how intuitive the tech is, whether or not it's actually worth picking up in the first place.
1-Documentation
2-Use some basic commands
3-Start a basic project
4-Read some articles, google , stack overflow
5-Choose a bigger complex project.
go from the basics - deep down - then Use that piece of tech as much as you can