Getting Stuck in Tutorial Hell Can Be Terrifying — Here’s How You Can Come Out

Say no to tutorial binge-watching

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

YouTube algorithms will force you to get stuck in tutorial purgatory. If you have seen a video related to the basics of the Python language, such as variables, loops, and functions.

The YouTube algorithm will recommend similar types of videos. These videos will include advanced things like classes, inheritance, and other object-oriented concepts.

Once you finish them, it will recommend channels that will show you how to do projects in Python. With the help of these tutorials, you will learn new concepts. You will learn how to use your code and how to create something useful.

If you kept watching tutorials one after another. Over time, your reliance on these tutorials would increase exponentially.

I Was Stuck in Tutorial Hell for Over a Year

I had never heard of this term called tutorial hell when I was learning to code. I was firmly convinced that following the tutorials and building something would help me land an internship.

YouTube was my friend. I used different YouTube channels to learn new languages and frameworks.

If I was learning Java for the first time, I would go to the YouTube website and start following tutorials. Everything was easy for me until the moment I followed the YouTube tutorials.

With the help of the tutorials, I was able to build several projects. I was proud of those projects. I told my friends about these great apps that I had created. Everyone appreciated my efforts, but no one showed me the right way to learn.

Employer Reaction to These Projects

I was proud of myself for building those projects. I used to mention them on my resume. I sent my resume to almost twenty companies for an intern position.

When I applied to those companies, I expected calls from more than fifteen companies; only two companies shortlisted me for the next round. I got a call from a developer at one of the startups.

He told me that my projects were copied. I hadn’t written a single line of code on my own. I told him that I followed the tutorials and then built the projects. He even said the name of the YouTube channel from where I copied the projects.

When someone starts to doubt your efforts, you start to hate not only the person who doubts you but also yourself. You think that all your effort has been wasted and all the hard work is gone.

Tutorial Projects Are for Everyone

You cannot cheat an employer. Even if you think you can do it, they go through thousands of resumes daily.

Even when viewing a resume, they can tell you which projects have been copied. When you have done something on your own, your resume will reflect it. They notice when something unique presents itself before their eyes.

Following the tutorial and creating something is only half the battle. You have to look for things that you can build on your own. Nothing can beat you when you have the experience of building something on your own.

Initially, you may be able to impress recruiters by the number of projects, but you can never impress them in a real interview. When an interviewer asks you to explain a project, they will grill you to a depth you have never imagined.

How To Get Out of Tutorial Hell

It is important to get out of tutorial purgatory as a developer. Not only does it help you get hired easily, but it will also help you learn better.

You can’t separate yourself from the crowd with the help of tutorial projects. To separate, you have to stand out from the crowd. You need to build something unique and on your own.

After building something from scratch with the help of Google and Stack Overflow. You will have the confidence to build something from scratch after joining a company.

1. You Should Start Deconstructing the Tutorial

Once you go through a tutorial, you learn about different types of concepts. You will learn how to connect the user interface to the backend. You will learn how to perform SQL queries and how to host a website.

Once you are done with a tutorial project, you must deconstruct the entire project into several parts. Once you divide the project into several parts, you will begin to notice how this division can help you build more projects.

If you just created a website with a to-do list, you have learned how to update the database and remove some items from it. Now you need to think about how you can use the concept of updating and removing items from the database in a different project.

Even if you have completed a tutorial that was basic, you can still use different concepts from those tutorials in your next big projects.

2. Combining Different Tutorials

You can use different tutorials to create something unique from a tutorial, if you learned to work with the database. Things like how to read from the database, how to update the database, and how to remove from the database.

From another tutorial, you learned how to set up a login page, authenticate users, and host your website. Now you must find a way to combine your knowledge from both tutorials.

You can try creating a blogging website where different people can log in and write a blog post. They can delete the post if they want, and they can also update their blog posts.

In this way, you will end up doing something unique and practice the concepts that you have learned from different tutorials in a new way.

3. Read Other People’s Code

In the tutorials, the tutors do all the handholding. You will face almost zero problems when copying the instructor’s code. When you do a job, you have to go through other people’s codes.

This can get difficult. If you’ve only practised copying the tutorial code, you never actually understood the correct reason why the code was written in a particular way.

To face fewer difficulties in the future, you go through code written by others. You can use GitHub to download other people’s open source projects and try to read and understand them.

Once you start reading the other code, you will begin to gain confidence in your abilities. When you do a job, most of the time you have to read other people’s code.

4. Contributing to the Open Source

You can use the open source project to contribute to them. Even if your pull request is rejected, you don’t need to worry too much. At least now you understand how the system works.

Once you start doing this, your reliance on the tutorial will be greatly reduced.

5. Solving the Algorithmic Questions

Very few developers practice algorithmic questions on regular basis. When you start practising problems, your mind will quickly identify similar problems and increase your problem-solving skills.

Not only does it make your days interesting, but it will also help you break them down during a technical interview.

I have used this technique for a few months. When I used to keep copying the tutor code into my editor, some of these questions made my days interesting.

6. Going Through the Documentation

Develop the habit of reading documentation. I wish someone in my past would have suggested this to me. I never had the habit of reading documentation and while working I paid the cost later.

There are probably thousands of tutorials available on the internet. In your work, when you get stuck with a problem, documentation will be the first thing to help you find a solution.

As things in technology become obsolete at a rapid rate, many times you will have a tutorial and it will not do you any good. That time, reading documentation will be a solution.