4 ms·

So-called programming "tutorials" have never sat right with me. The idea is fundamentally wrong. It's like trying to learn painting by watching a series of vide

So-called programming "tutorials" have never sat right with me. The idea is fundamentally wrong. It's like trying to learn painting by watching a series of videos in which you're taught which parts of canvas to paint what exact hue to recreate famous works of art, instead of being taught how to mix paints, negative space, and color theory. "I'm stuck in tutorial hell, I understand the tutorials for how to multiply 3 digit and the tutorial for how to multiply 4 digit numbers. But when I try to multiply 5 digit numbers on my own, I just can't figure it out and have to go look up a tut." Programming shouldn't be taught piecewise via 15 minute videos on YouTube of how to accomplish one particular specific task. It needs to be built from the ground up, from first principles of the environment in which you're programming, and the instruction given to pupils must be "determine the solution you need, break it into a series of building block steps, and then perform those building blocks." Not "try to re-create the tutorial of how to make a React component send a JSON request step by step without looking at the video." But no one makes video "tutorials" about the building blocks. Which is a shame, because that's the actual learning part.

eBombzor 5y ago
Disagree. You view programming as an art, okay that's fine, but most of the time it's not an art. You want to know how to do something one way and then if you really care about what you're building, you research better ways of doing things and from understanding why certain ways are better you start building the blocks of the underlying concepts. Building blocks from the ground up is great for schools, but is incredibly time consuming for learning the breadth of a tool.
SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
> It's like trying to learn painting by watching a series of videos in which you're taught which parts of canvas to paint what exact hue to recreate famous works of art I have some bad news for how artists traditionally learned how to paint. I agree with the overall thrust that only learning by copying with no theory behind it is bad, but the problem isn’t the copying it’s the lack of theory. A python flask how-to that also explains how flask works while doing the step by step process seems just fine to me.

eBombzor 5y ago

Disagree. You view programming as an art, okay that's fine, but most of the time it's not an art. You want to know how to do something one way and then if you really care about what you're building, you research better ways of doing things and from understanding why certain ways are better you start building the blocks of the underlying concepts. Building blocks from the ground up is great for schools, but is incredibly time consuming for learning the breadth of a tool.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago

> It's like trying to learn painting by watching a series of videos in which you're taught which parts of canvas to paint what exact hue to recreate famous works of art I have some bad news for how artists traditionally learned how to paint. I agree with the overall thrust that only learning by copying with no theory behind it is bad, but the problem isn’t the copying it’s the lack of theory. A python flask how-to that also explains how flask works while doing the step by step process seems just fine to me.