31/03/2024
HOW I OVERCOME TUTORIAL HELL?
I started coding with big dreams, but I got stuck trying to learn everything too quickly. I watched a super long YouTube tutorial and took tons of notes, but I still couldn't write a single line of code without going back to the video. It was really discouraging! Finally, I heard a talk about remembering what you learn, and that helped me figure out a way to move forward.
To boost my focus while learning, I started giving the material my full attention, no matter if it's a video tutorial or written documentation. This meant finding a quiet, distraction-free zone to work in. Ideally, I'd be in a completely isolated and silent space. For reading, I found listening to unfamiliar music with headphones especially helpful, as it blocked out any background noise and kept me engaged.
Again, I like to really get each thing before moving on to the next. One way I learn best is by making connections between new stuff and what I already know. Like, when I was learning about things called objects in JavaScript, I thought about them like a fancy way to store information about someone. So, just like a person has a name, skin tone, and maybe an address, objects have these things called properties to hold all their info.
Also, to solidify my learning, I take breaks after each section in the tutorial to review the concepts. Then, I challenge myself by writing my own code on that topic, completely from scratch and without copying the tutorial's code (as long as my solution works). For instance, when I learned about objects, I created objects to represent things like cars, animals, and even my phone!
Conquering the JavaScript tutorial was just the beginning. To truly improve, I needed to put that knowledge into action. I vividly recall finishing the course and diving headfirst into project ideas. My first attempt - a palindrome program - proved challenging at first. But giving up wasn't an option. That's how I learned: by persevering through each project, no matter the initial difficulty.
Explaining what I learned to others actually deepened my understanding and improved my language skills. I talked to my friends and posted online, and all this made a huge difference.
Without all of these considerations, I wouldn't be as good as I am today. In fact, I might still be struggling in my programming career.
