How I Learn from Code Tutorials
So you want to learn a thing about your favorite, new technology? For me, this often leads to googling a general phrase to begin with which points me towards a bunch of tutorials. Then I have to look through these tutorials quickly to determine which ones hold the most value for my goal.
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Quickly skim the content but only pay attention to the code samples. This is an opportunity to filter tutorials that are teaching you something you already know and also a chance to read someone else’s code. If you have determined you should continue forward, move to the second step. However, you may read through the code and realize “Oh, I’ve done this before.” If that’s the case, skip the next two steps and move on to the next tutorial.
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Now read through the text content of the post to try and understand what is being built without thinking about the code a whole lot. Here the focus is trying to understand the “what” and “why” questions about this technology. At this point you’ve read the code and then read the content of the article separately, so you should have a decent idea of what is being built so you are ready to proceed.
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The final step is a big one but starts with leaning back in your chair and cracking your knuckles. Now build out the example. You may not know exactly what’s going on but you have a good idea. This is where the fun happens since you get to make connections from A to B!
If you’re anything like me, you will fudge something up. I think it has to do with not wanting to simply copy-pasta examples which leads to errors. Hopefully these errors are easy to identify since it’s often some syntax issue. The other fun opportunity is that code is often not complete or there are assumptions made by the authors about certain versions, environment, etc. Due to this, you will encounter even more error messages! Each of these is an opportunity to learn more!
Eventually you will complete the tutorial. Hooray, you learned a thing! While you may not be an expert at that thing yet, you are better off than where you started and that’s all that matters when it comes to learning.