Latest / DevQuestions with Tim Corey / 063 Surviving Tutorial Hell - How to Succeed On Your Own As A Developer

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063 Surviving Tutorial Hell - How to Succeed On Your Own As A Developer · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: How do I survive tutorial hell?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: How do I learn to succeed on my own as a developer without college, a boot camp, or expensive courses?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: The idea that when you're on your own, you just get overwhelmed by tutorials, especially tutorials that confuse you and make you feel worse about yourself and worse about your experience learning to be a developer.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about how do you survive this?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: How do you thrive when the tutorials keep seemingly beat you down with what you don't know and how you don't know it?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk first about the three major components to learning.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's important to understand these components before addressing how to learn through tutorials.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now you're probably getting at least one of these wrong if you're struggling.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: So the first component of learning is learning in the proper order.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I see people all the time that miss this.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: So they're brand new to programming, maybe they don't even know what C sharp is, but they're already looking to build a Blazor server app.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's a big leap.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's very difficult.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't blame them because you don't know what you don't know.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know that's not the place to start.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: You may think that's a great place to start because that's what you want to do.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not that way.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: You want to start at the very beginning and work up to the more complicated topics like Blazor Server or any user interface, really, because they almost all deal with some pretty advanced object-oriented programming things.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so learning to do those things before you learn the UI is really important.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, number one, you want to make sure you have a proper order to your learning.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, you're gonna be frustrated, you're gonna feel like a failure, you're gonna feel like I just can't get this, and it's not you, it's not that you're dumb.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it has nothing to do with your intelligence.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: What it has to do with is just learning in the wrong order.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, practice.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you the number of people who get this wrong.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: When you're going through tutorials and you go through four, five, six, seven in a day, you probably haven't learned any of them.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I had a person recently that said, Hey, I'm struggling because I feel like I never remember the things that I learned.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, that's a red flag.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that red flag is they're probably not practicing what they're learning.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you read over something or you watch a video where it explains how to do something, it seems obvious.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: But after a day or two, that knowledge is gonna go away because you never actually done it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: You need to practice it.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Not only will this help solidify it in your brain, it will also expand your knowledge of a topic you're learning, and it will give you examples to look back to that are yours that you did in that specific area.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, really important practice, practice, practice.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I say three times because you should probably be practicing at least three times with anything you learn, big or small.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Number three, persistence.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Developers need to have an attitude of persistence, the idea that they're going to persevere through the difficult times, that when they're struggling with something, they're gonna get through it, they're going to keep moving forward.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Often people get stuck in this and say, Oh, I ran into the problem.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm ready to give up as a developer because I had a problem.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: I had this this um coming up this past week with a developer that I'm just I'm just ready to give up as a developer because I can't get this thing.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's if you're not careful, if you look at it the wrong way, I totally understand it.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: It feels overwhelming.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like you just can't get anywhere.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like you're stuck in the mud and you just can't move.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: But if you take a step back and look at what you're doing to get out of that mud, to get unstuck, you're probably trying different things.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're learning what doesn't work.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: You're learning about other things that maybe don't apply here, but that you didn't know about.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: You're trying to figure things out and you're looking in all these different spots.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: By doing that, you are learning more in-depth stuff than you ever would with just a tutorial.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that practice, that struggle, that trying to push ahead can be a very, very good thing.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, if I found a better way of doing this, I would have a full course just on the struggle, just on debugging.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is it's very hard to really do that in a true to life way.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: So whenever you have a problem come up, instead of trying to get out of it, try to work through it yourself.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Learn from that, learn from that persistence, that perseverance to push through to get to the other side.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: It will take a lot of work.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: You won't always even succeed, but you will learn from it, you will grow from it.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a very, very important trait because when it comes to the real world, when it comes to being paid to be a developer, the biggest part of your job is going to be figuring out problems, things that you probably can't Google, things that that don't work for some reason you're not sure why.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's your job.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Your job is to be a detective, your job is to track things down, to think logically through the steps, to work through that application, to figure out what's going wrong.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, persistence is really important as a developer.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, those are the three things that I think that you should uh go through or know the three major components to learning.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So now we know the three major components, which is proper order, practice, and persistence, let's come back to the idea of tutorial hell.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: The idea that when you're going through tutorials, it's just overwhelming.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, the first step you can take is to reduce the number of tutorials you're doing.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I know it sounds counterintuitive.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: You will learn more by doing less.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you are a person who watches a YouTube video and then the next YouTube video and the next YouTube video trying to learn topics, that's too fast.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's way too fast.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, if you watch two of my C sharp videos in on YouTube in one day, you're probably going too fast.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because you need to practice what you've learned right after you learn it.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Don't wait.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Don't think you've got it.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Don't go, yep, I understand that.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Prove it.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do it.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because oftentimes when you try and prove it, you'll figure out, oh, I didn't know all that, or I missed a key component.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So practice what you've learned.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: So therefore, reduce the number of tutorials that you do so you can do more in a better manner.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so that's number one, reduce the number of tutorials.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Number two is order your tutorials.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure that you're learning the right next thing.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: The idea that you have an order that you're learning in.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I have two foundation courses on I Amtim Corey.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: The first foundation course is foundation in C sharp, and the second one is foundation in web development.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: For both of these, one of the most important things in the course is the order.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: I spent an enormous amount of time putting those orders together, reworking the order, re-uh assessing the order, making sure the order was correct, so things built on each other, so that they weren't confusing as much because you've only ever used the things you've already learned.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a lot of work to get it right, but that order is important.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the major benefits of buying those courses versus just doing yourself with tutorials.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now I've shared before, and I'll share again.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Go look at the order that those are in.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't purchase the course, that's fine.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Use that order because that's one of the most valuable parts of the course, and it's yours for free.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can see exactly what the order is.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: You just need to go find those tutorials to match each of those topics in order.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: But that order is really important.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: So putting things in the right order will really help you as you progress.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Doing the basics first before the intermediate things, before the advanced things.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you try and start to advance things, you're going to get discouraged.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to feel like you can't understand things.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to feel like you're always just treading water, trying to get that next breath before you go underneath the waves.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what I want for you.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to learn in an order that is that is more easy, that is easier to go through, and it's more encouraging because you can succeed.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: You can succeed as a developer, but you have to learn it in the right order.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, number one, reduce the number of tutorials.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, learn the next right thing.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Put those tutorials in order.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Number three, I've already said it before, I want to say it again.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Practice each thing you learn.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Don't move on until you understand it.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Don't move on until you have at least two practice projects.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now have another uh podcast episode slash video, whichever you consume, on how to practice and what kind of applications to build when you practice.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of confusion around that, and I clarify a lot of that in that episode.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So check out the past episodes of dev questions for that practice episode.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the fourth thing is stick with it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Keep going, keep pushing forward.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: You can do this.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: You absolutely can.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, I have some people tell me sometimes, well, not everyone can.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they can.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: They absolutely can.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's maybe they won't, maybe you won't be as in-depth or as awesome as another developer.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can still be a great developer.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Each person is different.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean that each person can't do it.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like painting.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not good at painting, but I can paint a few things.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm not a Picasso.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: I am not a renaissance painter by any means.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I do stick figures.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't do things well.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: I can still paint, I can still learn how to do it better.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can do the same thing, stick with it.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the things on how to survive tutorial hell.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can do this, you can get beyond this and not feel overwhelmed.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to this week's episode.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a question about being a developer, check out the previous episodes.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, there's ones in there that'll be definitely helpful.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And as always, I am Tim Corey.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Def Questions.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Deaf Questions.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcorey.com.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcorey.com and enroll in a course.