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Over the years of my experience as a software developer working on several big projects, I have wasted hundreds of hours pretending to learn something.
But I realized one thing. Wrong-way of doing it can become costly in the long run.
Learning is a Delicate Process
After so many wrong approaches I have settled in my current process which I will be sharing today.
1. Why the Technology Exists?
Don’t just jump right in. I made this mistake several times when I was quite new to the game.
I hear something is cool, I learn it
I learned so many unnecessary things that wasted my time and effort. Obviously, every technology is there for a reason. But ask yourself if that reason is valid for you. Sherlock Holmes said
Your brain is like an empty room. Don't fill it up with unnecessary furnitures
So take some time. Even if I am obligated to learn something (For Job) I spend at least 30 minutes understanding the problem this particular technology is solving.
# Strategy
I go to google and search for things like
Why X is good
Why X is bad
How does X compare to other technologies?
2. Get An Overview
The difference between React and Redux was not clear to me for quite some time when I started learning React for the first time.
Try to Get a Birds Eyes View
I have learned that learning anything scratch without having the big picture can slow down me in the long run.
Now I try to understand different components and what they do (Not how they do it)
Strategy
In this step, I prefer watching youtube.
There are many people who give 15–30 minute introduction videos and talk over the architecture.
Spending around 2–3 hours is enough in most cases for me.
3. Get Some Good Resource
Some say you should go with the documentation. I strongly disagree with that. Although some documentation is very good( Like Django and NextJS) But most other documentation is pure garbage.
So, after I have a primary idea about the technology and its details then I go to documentation and try to learn the advanced topics.
# Strategy
I prefer written blogs over video tutorials. But video tutorials are equally good. but they take longer to finish.
Picking the right tutorial is super important for me. I found that a wrong tutorial can ruin the whole experience. So I search online to find out the best resource to learn that thing and pick that.
Most of the time they are free(Because Anything Free is Great :P)
But even if they are paid I go for it.
4. Do a Useful Project
The last step is to build something. I am sure you heard this before. Whatever tutorial I watch usually they teach through building something. But more often or not they are super common stuff like Todo List and things like that.
Adding Familiar Projects Don’t Add Value to My Resume
Most people recognize them anyway. So spending 20% extra time to build something that is not recognizable as a learning project right is a good investment of time for me.
Strategy
I pick a slightly separate project that is quite similar to the project in the tutorial and try to build that alongside. For example, instead of building a Todo List, I make something like a Habit tracker where I can add some additional functionality.
So that’s it. It’s my way of doing things. They might not be perfect but work for me.
Have a Great Day! :D
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