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Stop wasting hours on tutorials. Try building something broken on purpose.
I spent 3 months watching Python tutorials and got nowhere. Then a buddy told me to intentionally break a simple calculator script and fix it. I typed errors like 'print(x y)' and debugged line by line. That did more for my learning in one night than 20 hours of YouTube. Has anyone else tried breaking their own code as a shortcut?
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cameron4265mo ago
Huh, "shortcut" is a strong word for that approach. I mean yeah debugging IS how you learn, but I don't think breaking stuff is some kind of magical cheat code, you know? It's just one way to do it.
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wright.taylor5mo ago
I see what you're getting at @cameron426 but I kinda disagree it's not a magical cheat code exactly. I mean, when I first tried learning JavaScript I spent like two weeks on a tutorial that was just copy-pasting code and I didn't learn anything. But the first time I purposely wrote a loop that never ended and had to figure out why my browser froze, that's when it clicked for me. It's more like the difference between watching someone fix a car and actually getting your hands dirty and stripping a bolt yourself. Breaking stuff forces you to actually understand how the pieces fit together instead of just following steps. Maybe it's just me but tutorials always felt like I was building a house on a foundation of sand compared to the messing up method.
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