Had a week where every beginner tutorial pushed me backwards instead of forward

I spent last Wednesday trying to follow a React tutorial on YouTube and the guy kept using outdated syntax without mentioning it. I spent 4 hours debugging code that worked fine in his video but threw errors in my editor. Then Thursday I tried a different tutorial for the same concept and it assumed I already knew npm and bundlers. By Friday I was so frustrated I just closed my laptop and went outside. Idk, maybe it's just me but I feel like a lot of beginner tutorials are made by people who forgot what it's like to be a beginner. Has anyone else hit a wall where tutorials made you feel dumber than when you started?

3 comments

3 Comments

rose_reed19d ago

Five hour YouTube tutorials should come with a warning label. I swear half those creators just re-record old videos and hope nobody notices. The npm assumption thing drives me crazy too, like we all just magically understand bundlers overnight. You are not alone there at all.

miles_hall18d ago

Oh man it's like that thing where people assume you already know the secret handshake to get into the club (and then act annoyed when you knock on the door). I see this everywhere now, not just coding - like how everyone expects you to know the "right" way to do something without ever actually teaching it.

evan_green5218d ago

@rose_reed hit the nail on the head with that npm assumption thing. I had a buddy who tried learning Vue last month and he spent three days stuck because a tutorial casually mentioned "just run the CLI tool" without explaining what a CLI even was. He ended up copying code from a GitHub issue that was for a totally different framework by accident. The worst part was the tutorial creator never responded to comments asking for help. He finally gave up and switched to a paid course that actually explained the basics.