Three years ago I swore by huge tutorial projects, last week I switched to tiny ones

I used to think building a full weather app was the only way to learn Python, but after spending 4 hours debugging a popup menu last Tuesday I finally saw the light. Has anyone else had that moment where they realized small focused scripts teach way more than big projects?

2 comments

2 Comments

patriciasingh1mo ago

Wait, but be honest - how many of those "tiny" scripts have you actually finished and run? Because I've noticed my problem isn't the size of the project, it's that I get bored halfway through a 20-line script that just prints numbers. Like, does a 10-line file that calculates tips really stick in your brain better than that half-broken weather app?

craig.tessa1mo ago

I'll be real, I've finished maybe 4 out of 30 tiny scripts. The rest just sit in a folder named "learning" collecting dust. But those 4 that worked, yeah they stuck. One was a tip calculator that took 5 minutes, and I still remember how I built it. The weather app I spent a week on? Barely remember half the code. Small wins feel less heavy. You don't feel like you're drowning in broken stuff. What's the last tiny thing you actually finished?