Ask HN: How did you escape tutorial hell?

2 points by duke_core 5 years ago | 4 comments

Currently experiencing it with Django. Am a undergrad "data scientist" and trying to build up more theoretical/statistical knowledge on the side, however I am a non-CS major and completely self-taught so I haven't built up many end-to-end applications; I would say that I am a decent programmer but I haven't learnt how to use heavy duty frameworks as of yet. With Django I can make basic stuff but I HAVE to be following a tutorial. After my exams I was thinking of making a basic CRUD social media app with Django/Vue but I can't figure out all the steps (even after intensive googling, the issue is I'm trying to look for tutorials for literally everything and that is not ideal; I can't do anything by myself). Any tips?

mjhea0 5 years ago |

For beginner Django materials, I highly recommend William Vincent's work:

1. Django for Beginners: https://djangoforbeginners.com/ 2. Django for APIs: https://djangoforapis.com/

I helped edit the second book. :)

mjhea0 5 years ago | |

Solid, learning by doing material

duiker101 5 years ago |

Step one, is realising that perfect is the enemy of done.

Choose to build something that you could use in your daily life, this will motivate you and give you are clearer path.

Next, just start. You know the basics, or at least how to setup the project and the gist of it. Start small, literally the smallest unit of work and build up. Be it a button, a single form, the login or whatever.

If you need tutorials find them specific to the issue at hand. Do not follow tutorials that guide you step by step but rather just extract the one piece you need.

Khelavaster 5 years ago |

I used a higher-quality framework with simpler tooling to get the basics and rote out of the way, so I could focus on the creative part and use documentation instead of tutorials.

ASP.Net MVC with Entity Framework from Scaffolding, if you're curious. Leagues better than Django.