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I’ve had the opposite experience. I’ve found countless times that online tutorials confuse the issue, even if they help you to accomplish some specific task. Th

I’ve had the opposite experience. I’ve found countless times that online tutorials confuse the issue, even if they help you to accomplish some specific task. The FM on the other hand tells it like it is. The trick is to only read the parts that you need to in order to clear up your confusion. This sometimes means reading one section and having to look something up in another section before you can understand the first, and this can sometimes be a recursive process, but if you have any understanding of the technology at all the recursion depth is rarely greater than two or three. You’ll quickly find that the things you don’t understand have straightforward explanations in terms of the things you do understand. If you find yourself five levels deep in this process and still unable to comprehend what you’re reading, you need to take a step back and ask yourself if you do in fact have any real understanding of the technology you’re using.

veddox 8y ago
> If you find yourself five levels deep in this process and still unable to comprehend what you’re reading, you need to take a step back and ask yourself if you do in fact have any real understanding of the technology you’re using. ... in which case, you are in exactly the right spot to learn the fundamentals of whatever you're trying to learn :D One reason why I value (good) manuals is precisely that they are not simply a how-to-do-X-with-Y tutorial. Instead, a good manual will explain the theory behind what you're trying to do - and so leave you in a much better position to solve future problems on your own. Because now, you actually understand what you're doing.
- 2muchcoffeeman 8y ago
  I find that a lot of documentation is poorly written or poorly structured. They read like a straight description of a piece of software rather than a document designed to help you understand what’s going on.

veddox 8y ago

> If you find yourself five levels deep in this process and still unable to comprehend what you’re reading, you need to take a step back and ask yourself if you do in fact have any real understanding of the technology you’re using. ... in which case, you are in exactly the right spot to learn the fundamentals of whatever you're trying to learn :D One reason why I value (good) manuals is precisely that they are not simply a how-to-do-X-with-Y tutorial. Instead, a good manual will explain the theory behind what you're trying to do - and so leave you in a much better position to solve future problems on your own. Because now, you actually understand what you're doing.

2muchcoffeeman 8y ago
I find that a lot of documentation is poorly written or poorly structured. They read like a straight description of a piece of software rather than a document designed to help you understand what’s going on.