For a long time I held off starting my own side projects because of how much I didn’t know how to do.
For every project I could think of, there were several features I had absolutely no idea how to build. I would always ask myself how I could start working on something when I didn’t even know half of what it took to finish it. I was convinced I needed to learn more before I could build anything of my own.
So, instead of building my own projects, I got stuck in what I’ll call “tutorial purgatory.” Since I felt like I learned best this way, I read and watched every tutorial I could find that seemed interesting and that I thought might apply to my own projects one day. I spent month after month doing this, filling my nights with endless videos on YouTube, Udemy, and whatever other tutorial site I stumbled across. I learned a lot, and forgot nearly as much in the process.
Don’t get me wrong. I love tutorials, and I think learning the basics from tutorials is a great way to get started. But if you’re not careful, you can end up spending way more time reading or watching tutorials than you really should.
Why did I make this mistake? Truthfully, I think it’s because tutorials felt safe. With tutorials, you have someone telling you exactly what to do. And you feel like you’re learning a ton and being incredibly productive. But in reality, if you’re going through tutorial after tutorial just for the sake of learning and not as part of a larger project you’re working on, you’re probably learning a lot less than you think.
Eventually, I came to the realization that I needed to stop watching tutorials, abandon my comfort zone, and build a project on my own, without all the instructions neatly laid out for me.
There was so much I didn’t know how to do when I began that first project (just as there’s still so much I don’t know how to do with every project I begin). I didn’t know how to build an authorization system, implement pagination or use AJAX in a Rails app. I didn’t know how to use recursion to implement a comment system. In fact, I didn’t even know what recursion was!
But it didn’t matter. I didn’t think about all the things I didn’t know how to do. Instead, I started with what I knew, and I figured out the rest along the way. When I got stuck, I Googled. I poured over Stack Overflow questions and answers and searched for articles and tutorials. I still use tutorials all the time, but now I only use them to learn something I’m going to immediately apply to a project.
In the rare event that I couldn’t find the answers I needed through these channels, I asked for help on Stack Overflow. Some of my questions even got answered! It’s not as scary as it seems, and everyone needs help from time to time.
My code from that project isn’t pretty. It’s not DRY. It needs some refactoring, and there are probably a lot more efficient ways I could have done several things. There are also some things I did in that project that I didn’t even fully understand. But it doesn’t matter. I built something non-trivial that actually worked, and I did it without following a set of instructions.
I learned more from doing that first project than I learned in the preceding year spent on tutorials. Most importantly, I learned the skills I really needed to succeed as a developer. I taught myself how to problem solve and hack code together, and I got to enjoy the wonderful satisfaction of actually shipping something I built myself for the first time. It didn’t matter that it didn’t have any users or that the design wasn’t that great. Just the act of building something of my own was transformational.
You’re never going to know how to do everything (nobody does), and you’re always going to need to look things up on the internet (everyone does). Don’t let that stop you from just diving in and building stuff.
Oldest comments (42)
Yes. I've observed this behavior a lot, but haven't seen it articulated so well.
For what it's worth, I'd say I've always had the opposite instinct, of trying things without carefully following the tutorials. From either direction, I think there is definitely a sweet spot in terms of each type of learning/doing.
Thanks, Ben! Agreed regarding the sweet spot, and it's probably a little different for everyone.
See when I first started I was the same, tried things first until I got stuck. Not sure when that stopped.
Great stuff - I think a lot of us face this, I know I do. And it’s hard to get out of it and not be scared. But we got to just go on our own and be okay with failing and googling.
I've found that reframing the internal monologue is helpful too. Instead of viewing any missteps as a failure, seeing these side projects as pure experimentation goes a long way towards gaining confidence as a developer. Don't be afraid to try new things and break them!
"My code from that project isn’t pretty. It’s not DRY. It needs some refactoring, and there are probably a lot more efficient ways I could have done several things. There are also some things I did in that project that I didn’t even fully understand."
That describes pretty much all software projects, we are all human.
You learn about DRY, you write code, you try to apply it, you get it 30% 50% or 80% right and that's always better than never to have known about DRY and only getting it 5% right by accident.
This is an excellent point! And there's always a tradeoff between how much time you want to spend refactoring vs learning and building something new.
and while refactoring a whole architecture is a pain, VCS allow for code changes all the time.
This is great! Thanks for sharing. It's a good reminder I think I needed.
I would also say that it's ok to not be ready to leave tutorial purgatory yet. If you're happy following guides and getting overviews of cool technologies, and you don't have a pressing need or desire to build something, don't feel like you are lame for liking to follow along with tutorials. :)
Nice one. I love to code just to know what's happening in the industry. I'm more of an enthusiast than anything. I love tutorials. But true tutorials in and of themselves don't make you a developer. You have to build stuff.
I was trapped in this for a long time. The hardest concept for me to wrap my head around is to come up with a goal and use code to accomplish that goal, without a tutorial to guide me. I would say for anyone staring at a screen unable to move without a tut to guide them, start by looking for a small goal. Print a giant "F" with hashtags using your chosen language. Look for an api that looks cool to you and write out some requests. Anything to break you out of the mindset of being unable to do anything on your own, and just choose a goal and use code to make it happen.
Nicely summed up!
The AJAX part is me right now but with Django. I'm following a tutorial to learn more about this and plan to learn React this weekend. And learn how to use both of them on some kind of projects. I want to learn so much things.
I just want to say Thank You, I needed to hear that.
Agreed, a major part of learning is to make mistakes and struggling over an over again on a problem until you finally solve it. With tutorials the problems are solve and their really are no errors
Could not agree more! Making mistakes and struggling feels uncomfortable at first and that's another reason it's so easy to stay in tutorial land.
I've been so afraid of making my own stuff. In the end, you just have to do it, make mistakes, fix 'em, and refine your app along the way-- which means constant research and observation, doing and un-doing.
We learn better from it.
Thanks for the much-needed, well-written, amazing article!
I second what you said about being "afraid of making my own stuff". I've been experiencing this fear a lot lately, and it has been down to following the path of least resistance. And that's how we end up in purgatory–an attempt to map out that "path" through hours and hours of tutorial-porn.
The ugly truth about making progress is that it comes with a boat load of obstacles. The earlier we accept this, the earlier we dive into making our own stuff with the little knowledge we may have.
Knowledge about the size of a mustard seed is good enough to start the next project