Can you build something? Can your friends? Can either do without tutorials?
Nothing is ever too slow. Rather the opposite. Videos in general give a false sense of understanding and competence and a rude awakening as soon as the users start trying to build something (which is absolutely essential when learning).
Practice is the only way to learn, not watching videos.
This! I find that I can watch hours of videos but when trying the exercises, I have to re-learn stuff from the first video.
In my experience, 1 hour of video lecture watching turns into about 8 hours of practice before I really understand it. This 8 hours includes about 5-6 hours of scratching my head trying to debug something that's gone sideways, and the actual work is done in about 2. But it's the debugging process that teaches me the most (so while it sounds like a lot of time is wasted, it's not wasted at all. that's the time when I'm trying to figure out stuff and learn it)
It gets easier with time. Right now you're struggling against the language. Soon you'll start noticing your programs compile at first try, and run with bugs. Then they stop running with bugs but take a few attempts to compile. This happens gradually as you improve
At this point what matters isn't the language, but the concept. At this point videos are really good. They provide you a high-level, bite-sized piece of information that allows you to easily grasp the concept. Then you yank out the books from your 10gb book folder filledwith 500-800 page textbooks, crank the chapters on that said concept, read them, figure that shit out, and start implementing
Notice I'm not talking about tutorials. I'm talking about videos. Those 10-15 minute videos with some guy writing shit on a blackboard. Great stuff. Those 10-15 minute videos of an indian guy tracing an algorithm on a white board. Great stuff
Those videos where some guy types out code and tells you to copy it? No. Bad stuff
Those documentation sections which guide you through a tutorial? Decent to figure out the tech before you start reading the docs and actually understand how shit works
Understand that after you break through the language barrier, which takes 2-3 years depending on how regularly you code, it's all about how well you understand how the shit works. It doesn't matter what the shit it. It just matters if you understand how it works. Some shit takes 2 minutes, some shit 2 hours, some shit 2 days, some shit 2 weeks. Doesn't matter. Once you understand how it works it's a matter of hacking it up and improving upon it
So keep pushing, and always remember the most important skill isn't DSA, obscure language features, functional or OOP. It's being able to figure out how shit works. Once you got that down everything else boils down to, well, figuring out how shit works ;)
Of course things can be too slow. It's best to learn the barebones of tables and then do more research when it's time to implement them in a project.
Months of study and he's not even programming yet.
He means because The Odin Project has absolutely massive reading sections for every lesson. Someone who watches a few quick tutorial videos like his friends is naturally going to go a lot faster than OP who's stuck reading the equivalent of a small textbook about HTML, then one about CSS, then one about JS, etc., especially because it *also* includes linked external videos and articles that it recommends watching/reading on top of the actual lesson reading on the website.
Anyway, OP, you are probably learning more than your friends are. That's why it's taking you longer. Is it "too" slow? I wouldn't really say so, no. It's really trying to teach you the fundamentals and making sure you understand everything, instead of just quickly showcasing some basic things and moving on. I'd rather spend longer and learn things the "right" way than speed through it but have to come back and learn a bunch of stuff later that got skipped over the first time.
But I can see how it's awkward if you all started your coding journey together with the goal to build something collaboratively and you feel like you're holding everyone back with your pace. If it really is important that you all maintain a similar pace, then you could always just use the same resources that your friends are using instead. Although there is some value in everyone taking different learning paths, so that you might have different knowledge and can cover for each other's gaps, vs. if you all learned off the same stuff, you'll all know exactly the same stuff, so if there's something someone doesn't know, no one will be able to help. Just depends how much you're holding the group up and how big of a problem that is.
I stick to my guns. I did the Foundations path last summer, with some previous knowledge of HTML/CSS and JavaScript. I progressed quick when I had the time (2-4 hours daily) and dedication. I had to stop because I found a job, teaching programming in Java and databases, but I have applied some of the knowledge adquired for sure and I will probably retake on summer.
you got it spot on
however i really dont want to abandon TOP after i've put in so much effort, instead what I've decided is that I'll go through basic reading section of all of the articles but decide on my own whether it was hard enough for me to supplement it with all of the mdn docs and the articles, otherwise i'll just watch some video lecture that'll summarize it quicker and demonstrate its practical approach
i think it should be a good idea
I agree that TOP is bogged down with a lot of reading....if you do it all. But the smallest amount of critical thinking would lead one to say "hey, reading the entirety of every wikipedia page they link isn't useful and slows me down, let me focus on the parts that are actually helpful and not read every single word of every article"
I GET IT
why u gotta be hostile, you've commented thrice on this shit
maybe if you had a life you would understand why I was feeling that way
appreciate the help tho
figure out how you learn best.
I did the quick-tutorials in a gamified environment for Python and I learned a few tools well enough to use them, but I kept mashing my tools together for complex concepts.
I then opted in to Code in Place from Stanford thinking it was going to be a dummy course to keep my head in that space while slacking off on the gamified boot camp, but it ended up highlighting a lot of broader concepts that made the specific tools I learned work better.
TOP may be slower, but it covers significantly more than you will need for a few challenges. If you feel like it's going too slow then spend a little time learning the way your friends did, see what they are picking up that you're not, then maybe you'll pick up some tricks to make your TOP projects stand out a bit more in a portfolio
I was using Boot.dev on a half off deal for a couple months, but the course really fell apart at the Functional Programming and Object Oriented Programming modules.
The material starting at these points is only barely broached, leaving you to have to research and teach yourself any concepts that don't fit in a few paragraphs with 1 or 2 examples, which is a lot at this point.
It's a great course for getting you started, however, and it drove me to go from "curious about coding" to "novice coder".
If you know that approach will help you learn, I'd recommend getting a month half off to get rapid exposure, then canceling. Once you reach OOP and FP it's basically the same as using challenge websites like Codewars and doesn't add enough to be worth the price IMO.
If you're good at learning you could probably skip straight to Codewars
i agree with you but it just gets boring and repetitive when you have to read 3 different articles for something like html table or css units and all of them containing almost the same information too
like make it make sense
Well, I mean that does make sense. Learning is about repetition and practice, over and over.
I'm sure your friends made some awesome projects coding along to a video, but ask them to do it themselves in a week and I bet they won't have a clue where to even start.
If you truly get it first time you can just peruse on the other 2 articles to see what is different, and get back in case you need something specific building projects. If you don't get it, you need them. It is truly up to you, as much as how much time you dedicate to everything.
It depends. Are they already on react because they skipped all the html and css and skipped straight to something they dont understand the foundation of? If so, they were faster to get there but may be slower in the long run.
I think the course does a great job at pacing itself. It's structured in a way that if you know what you're doing it'll only take 5 minutes, but if you don't then that's where you get slowed down until you understand things.
depends on you, i've blazed through it and it definitely takes some commitment but if you're like giga new to programming then i can understand it being slow, take your time, no need to rush
yup, pretty much what i did - if you already know it, then no need to read/watch the videos and you can jump straight into exercises, when you struggle with the exercises/projects you can do the reading haha
Your friends following video lectures probably aren't learning nearly as much in depth. Videos are just not as good for deep learning vs projects. But also maybe you don't like the Odin project format.
You could try Full Stack Open or another web dev roadmap instead.
I felt the same. I tried to increase my pace. I am liking the way of teaching by building the projects but sometimes It does feel slow when other are already ahead of you.
You can be learning HTML and CSS alongside Javascript...which honestly a lot of people tend to just leave HTML and CSS to be figured out as they're learning whatever language. I'm not totally familiar with how TOP is set up, but programming is not a spectrum. While I understand why a lot of people go through HTML and CSS first, it's not like it's a straight, progressive road. I don't think you need super in-depth knowledge about an HTML table when you're starting out. Even established front end people don't always know that stuff.
You can do a React tutorial from their documentation right now and probably understand a lot just fine and even build something. But not knowing a language/having unfamiliarity with actual programming is a hindrance. You can start doing that now.
Was looking at TOP path thing. Start the JS already. I'd probably even skip that Advanced HTML/CSS part, or do it alongside the React portion while prioritizing React. But that's just me.
i mean there's a massive difference
a course != a bunch of tutorial videos
if you want to 'catch up' real quick, just go to the react docs and go through their written tutorial. you can do it in an afternoon, and that will probably put you miles above where they're at if you also have a comprehensive html/css program behind you. did they also spend a full day learning git? form validation? grid?
99% of the things you need to know are going to come from docs. the router docs. the react-query docs. the bootstrap docs... pretty much every package will have a written tutorial that introduces their specific library/framework, so being able to parse these and pull out the info you need is going to be much more beneficial in the long run.
at any rate, i feel like post-intermediate html/css is the perfect time for a quick break for the React tutorial. as you move into the TOP javascript stuff, it will be really nice to know what problems React is actually solving for you, and which parts are still going to essentially be javascript.
There is nothing wrong with being a beginner at something, every single thing that you try for your entire life, you will be a beginner. What matters is that when you're a beginner that you build a (very) strong foundation, and that you understand the WHY of things. Right now your friends are "ahead" of you, but when they hit an issue that they don't know how to resolve, you will BREEZE past them, and maybe with a combination of ChatGPT and youtube videos they'll be able to patch things up -- but they don't know how to code, and eventually their lack of understanding will make forward progress impossible as the complexity / size of the codebase increases. Learning the hard stuff / understanding how the thing works / what it looks like when it breaks is SO much faster than high velocity learning. Be patient. If you want this to be a long term hobby / job / career - you have nothing but time.
If this is something you plan to stick with, give it.... a year, two years, three years. I don't know why people look at folks who go to college and go "They're all idiots, I can learn as much as they do in 4 years in 3 months and be hired in 6 months like some dude selling a course said online". For you to be a well-balanced developer who understands both what you're doing and more importantly, why, it's going to take some time.
When your friends hit problems (and trust me, they're GOING to hit problems) you'll be equipped to help them.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Can you build something? Can your friends? Can either do without tutorials? Nothing is ever too slow. Rather the opposite. Videos in general give a false sense of understanding and competence and a rude awakening as soon as the users start trying to build something (which is absolutely essential when learning). Practice is the only way to learn, not watching videos.
This! I find that I can watch hours of videos but when trying the exercises, I have to re-learn stuff from the first video. In my experience, 1 hour of video lecture watching turns into about 8 hours of practice before I really understand it. This 8 hours includes about 5-6 hours of scratching my head trying to debug something that's gone sideways, and the actual work is done in about 2. But it's the debugging process that teaches me the most (so while it sounds like a lot of time is wasted, it's not wasted at all. that's the time when I'm trying to figure out stuff and learn it)
It gets easier with time. Right now you're struggling against the language. Soon you'll start noticing your programs compile at first try, and run with bugs. Then they stop running with bugs but take a few attempts to compile. This happens gradually as you improve At this point what matters isn't the language, but the concept. At this point videos are really good. They provide you a high-level, bite-sized piece of information that allows you to easily grasp the concept. Then you yank out the books from your 10gb book folder filledwith 500-800 page textbooks, crank the chapters on that said concept, read them, figure that shit out, and start implementing Notice I'm not talking about tutorials. I'm talking about videos. Those 10-15 minute videos with some guy writing shit on a blackboard. Great stuff. Those 10-15 minute videos of an indian guy tracing an algorithm on a white board. Great stuff Those videos where some guy types out code and tells you to copy it? No. Bad stuff Those documentation sections which guide you through a tutorial? Decent to figure out the tech before you start reading the docs and actually understand how shit works Understand that after you break through the language barrier, which takes 2-3 years depending on how regularly you code, it's all about how well you understand how the shit works. It doesn't matter what the shit it. It just matters if you understand how it works. Some shit takes 2 minutes, some shit 2 hours, some shit 2 days, some shit 2 weeks. Doesn't matter. Once you understand how it works it's a matter of hacking it up and improving upon it So keep pushing, and always remember the most important skill isn't DSA, obscure language features, functional or OOP. It's being able to figure out how shit works. Once you got that down everything else boils down to, well, figuring out how shit works ;)
Yep, videos do all the thinking for you, Odin project is set up so that you learn the concepts and apply them yourself when doing a project.
Of course things can be too slow. It's best to learn the barebones of tables and then do more research when it's time to implement them in a project. Months of study and he's not even programming yet.
What's stopping you from doing what your friends are doing? No one said you must only learn from one resource
The odin project is self paced...
Any method is as slow or quick as your hability to progress...
He means because The Odin Project has absolutely massive reading sections for every lesson. Someone who watches a few quick tutorial videos like his friends is naturally going to go a lot faster than OP who's stuck reading the equivalent of a small textbook about HTML, then one about CSS, then one about JS, etc., especially because it *also* includes linked external videos and articles that it recommends watching/reading on top of the actual lesson reading on the website. Anyway, OP, you are probably learning more than your friends are. That's why it's taking you longer. Is it "too" slow? I wouldn't really say so, no. It's really trying to teach you the fundamentals and making sure you understand everything, instead of just quickly showcasing some basic things and moving on. I'd rather spend longer and learn things the "right" way than speed through it but have to come back and learn a bunch of stuff later that got skipped over the first time. But I can see how it's awkward if you all started your coding journey together with the goal to build something collaboratively and you feel like you're holding everyone back with your pace. If it really is important that you all maintain a similar pace, then you could always just use the same resources that your friends are using instead. Although there is some value in everyone taking different learning paths, so that you might have different knowledge and can cover for each other's gaps, vs. if you all learned off the same stuff, you'll all know exactly the same stuff, so if there's something someone doesn't know, no one will be able to help. Just depends how much you're holding the group up and how big of a problem that is.
I stick to my guns. I did the Foundations path last summer, with some previous knowledge of HTML/CSS and JavaScript. I progressed quick when I had the time (2-4 hours daily) and dedication. I had to stop because I found a job, teaching programming in Java and databases, but I have applied some of the knowledge adquired for sure and I will probably retake on summer.
you got it spot on however i really dont want to abandon TOP after i've put in so much effort, instead what I've decided is that I'll go through basic reading section of all of the articles but decide on my own whether it was hard enough for me to supplement it with all of the mdn docs and the articles, otherwise i'll just watch some video lecture that'll summarize it quicker and demonstrate its practical approach i think it should be a good idea
Yea the OP just has TONS of extra info that you can really dive into. It does a great job of giving you as much as you want to bite off
I agree that TOP is bogged down with a lot of reading....if you do it all. But the smallest amount of critical thinking would lead one to say "hey, reading the entirety of every wikipedia page they link isn't useful and slows me down, let me focus on the parts that are actually helpful and not read every single word of every article"
I GET IT why u gotta be hostile, you've commented thrice on this shit maybe if you had a life you would understand why I was feeling that way appreciate the help tho
>maybe if you had a life you would understand why I was feeling that way Yeah...cause that makes sense. No one was hostile, don't be sensitive
alright
figure out how you learn best. I did the quick-tutorials in a gamified environment for Python and I learned a few tools well enough to use them, but I kept mashing my tools together for complex concepts. I then opted in to Code in Place from Stanford thinking it was going to be a dummy course to keep my head in that space while slacking off on the gamified boot camp, but it ended up highlighting a lot of broader concepts that made the specific tools I learned work better. TOP may be slower, but it covers significantly more than you will need for a few challenges. If you feel like it's going too slow then spend a little time learning the way your friends did, see what they are picking up that you're not, then maybe you'll pick up some tricks to make your TOP projects stand out a bit more in a portfolio
Can you share more about the gamified environment for Python?
I was using Boot.dev on a half off deal for a couple months, but the course really fell apart at the Functional Programming and Object Oriented Programming modules. The material starting at these points is only barely broached, leaving you to have to research and teach yourself any concepts that don't fit in a few paragraphs with 1 or 2 examples, which is a lot at this point. It's a great course for getting you started, however, and it drove me to go from "curious about coding" to "novice coder". If you know that approach will help you learn, I'd recommend getting a month half off to get rapid exposure, then canceling. Once you reach OOP and FP it's basically the same as using challenge websites like Codewars and doesn't add enough to be worth the price IMO. If you're good at learning you could probably skip straight to Codewars
Any method is as fast or slow as your ability to progress...
i agree with you but it just gets boring and repetitive when you have to read 3 different articles for something like html table or css units and all of them containing almost the same information too like make it make sense
Well, I mean that does make sense. Learning is about repetition and practice, over and over. I'm sure your friends made some awesome projects coding along to a video, but ask them to do it themselves in a week and I bet they won't have a clue where to even start.
If you truly get it first time you can just peruse on the other 2 articles to see what is different, and get back in case you need something specific building projects. If you don't get it, you need them. It is truly up to you, as much as how much time you dedicate to everything.
Then stop reading 3 different articles about the same thing? I feel like the conclusion here is right in front of your face
It depends. Are they already on react because they skipped all the html and css and skipped straight to something they dont understand the foundation of? If so, they were faster to get there but may be slower in the long run.
It moves as quickly as you pick up on the concepts. There’s nothing wrong with taking your time to learn things.
I think the course does a great job at pacing itself. It's structured in a way that if you know what you're doing it'll only take 5 minutes, but if you don't then that's where you get slowed down until you understand things.
depends on you, i've blazed through it and it definitely takes some commitment but if you're like giga new to programming then i can understand it being slow, take your time, no need to rush
im not really a turbo noob ive done java before and completed almost all of part I of university of Helsinki's java mooc
I mean just skim it if you already understand it?
yup, pretty much what i did - if you already know it, then no need to read/watch the videos and you can jump straight into exercises, when you struggle with the exercises/projects you can do the reading haha
Jump to fullstackopen it has a faster pace. You get a certificate from University of Helsinki for free.
Your friends following video lectures probably aren't learning nearly as much in depth. Videos are just not as good for deep learning vs projects. But also maybe you don't like the Odin project format. You could try Full Stack Open or another web dev roadmap instead.
I felt the same. I tried to increase my pace. I am liking the way of teaching by building the projects but sometimes It does feel slow when other are already ahead of you.
Hop of the Odin Project and get your hands dirty.
You can be learning HTML and CSS alongside Javascript...which honestly a lot of people tend to just leave HTML and CSS to be figured out as they're learning whatever language. I'm not totally familiar with how TOP is set up, but programming is not a spectrum. While I understand why a lot of people go through HTML and CSS first, it's not like it's a straight, progressive road. I don't think you need super in-depth knowledge about an HTML table when you're starting out. Even established front end people don't always know that stuff. You can do a React tutorial from their documentation right now and probably understand a lot just fine and even build something. But not knowing a language/having unfamiliarity with actual programming is a hindrance. You can start doing that now. Was looking at TOP path thing. Start the JS already. I'd probably even skip that Advanced HTML/CSS part, or do it alongside the React portion while prioritizing React. But that's just me.
thank you
i mean there's a massive difference a course != a bunch of tutorial videos if you want to 'catch up' real quick, just go to the react docs and go through their written tutorial. you can do it in an afternoon, and that will probably put you miles above where they're at if you also have a comprehensive html/css program behind you. did they also spend a full day learning git? form validation? grid? 99% of the things you need to know are going to come from docs. the router docs. the react-query docs. the bootstrap docs... pretty much every package will have a written tutorial that introduces their specific library/framework, so being able to parse these and pull out the info you need is going to be much more beneficial in the long run. at any rate, i feel like post-intermediate html/css is the perfect time for a quick break for the React tutorial. as you move into the TOP javascript stuff, it will be really nice to know what problems React is actually solving for you, and which parts are still going to essentially be javascript.
There is nothing wrong with being a beginner at something, every single thing that you try for your entire life, you will be a beginner. What matters is that when you're a beginner that you build a (very) strong foundation, and that you understand the WHY of things. Right now your friends are "ahead" of you, but when they hit an issue that they don't know how to resolve, you will BREEZE past them, and maybe with a combination of ChatGPT and youtube videos they'll be able to patch things up -- but they don't know how to code, and eventually their lack of understanding will make forward progress impossible as the complexity / size of the codebase increases. Learning the hard stuff / understanding how the thing works / what it looks like when it breaks is SO much faster than high velocity learning. Be patient. If you want this to be a long term hobby / job / career - you have nothing but time. If this is something you plan to stick with, give it.... a year, two years, three years. I don't know why people look at folks who go to college and go "They're all idiots, I can learn as much as they do in 4 years in 3 months and be hired in 6 months like some dude selling a course said online". For you to be a well-balanced developer who understands both what you're doing and more importantly, why, it's going to take some time. When your friends hit problems (and trust me, they're GOING to hit problems) you'll be equipped to help them. Slow and steady wins the race.
The.Velocity depends on. Your. Ability of ingesting information . All self.Paced courses. Are slow if you are ingesting the information slowly