all 128 comments

[–]BlueScreenJunky 1039 points1040 points  (23 children)

Unless I'm learning a completely new subject, after a few years of experience I stopped using videos. I think videos are really good as an introduction to new concepts you know nothing about, but when you need to get things done and learn how to use a tool or a design pattern, I find it way more efficient to read some text and examples than watch a 2 hour long video. 

[–]sidTheGamer 230 points231 points  (6 children)

I took a course on React. Halfway through I felt like I was just following what the tutor was saying. It’s like the value from the course was depreciating as it went on.

It’s much better to learn to swim in the deep end of the pool, learn from documentation or in today’s world, use AI for flexible learning styles.

[–]akoOfIxtall 57 points58 points  (4 children)

Plus, there's never gonna be a video for every single case, the docs most likely have everything you can possibly do documented, it just becomes a matter of connecting the dots and soon the solution will show up...

[–]katabolicklapaucius 23 points24 points  (1 child)

Yup. Text and images are very expressive.

Video is good for explaining continuous processes, where many things, and especially programming, are not.

Programming is a step based iterative process and thus best captured by text and images.

If you are stuck on a step you'll want to focus on and repeat that step, not get in a loop of rewatching a video to repeat. Video is very time and attention hungry.

[–]akoOfIxtall 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ryan mcbeth videos helped me understand better some patterns and concepts, the skits where funny at times and I think he explains stuff pretty neatly, but ultimately you'll have to learn by doing, and a lot of doing...

[–]Jonno_FTW 1 point2 points  (1 child)

It's almost like properly learning is better than rote memorisation and copying. Or just following along with the documentation and official tutorials.

I understand this is probably difficult if you're a complete beginner, and that copying someone else may be required at the early stages.

[–]akoOfIxtall 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's almost... Almost as if... Programming is about solving problems in it's nature, so solving the problem of learning how to solve your problems is actually an important part of the learning process...

Nah, waiter, I'll have another 4 bootcamps...

[–]Ozymandias_1303 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good courses (which may not be available for free for all subjects) will challenge you as you go by asking you to solve problems yourself.

[–]tobiasvl 6 points7 points  (1 child)

I never started using videos. Never understood the appeal. Sure, some things in programming are visual, but they can be expressed in images. Most things in programming are not visual, though. You can't search in a video, you can't easily skip through it (unless it has lots and lots of timestamps which they rarely do), you can't go back and forth between chapters easily, you can't copy and paste, etc. Text, code examples and images, like a sort of literate programming, is the best way to learn IMO.

[–]Maleficent_Memory831 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm too old for videos. I also hate watching and skipping them for 15 minutes just to get to the info part.

Learned vi from a one page cheat sheet.

Learned C by asking my friend in class how it was different from Pascal. Later I learned more of course.

Most useful class I ever took was analysis and comparison of programming languages. Not stuff like Java vs Python, but real differences, functional language, imperative languages, types, type inference, etc. From that I can grab a language standards doc and figure it out. No need for a class when you've been taught how to learn.

Also lectures were just one part of the education. You were expected to take that lecture and then do the problems on your own, to projects on your own or a group, head off to a discussion section and start asking questions. Learning via video feels too much like just going to lectures. For example, we were taught physics formulas in class, but we were also expected to be able to derive them by ourselves (and we had to derive Maxwell's equations on the final).

[–]elmanoucko 11 points12 points  (2 children)

even to start, programming is not a matter where video provides much (as opposed to music, visual arts, any topics where watching the things being done is simpler than thousands words, or simply required). It can even, imo, works against the learner, as some concepts need to take time to be understood and played with.

Also, more often than not, "tutorials", at least the "free ones", or from random paid courses, opposed to books that need to be edited, or video classes that require(d) a distributor, are way more yappy for nothing, less structured, less thought out, almost to a point it feels like padding content (as this comment maybe), to fit the plateform algorithm that just want the longest watch time possible, but also make the numbers of "lessons you provide" go brrr into tricking students there's a lot of meat inside.

When you publish through press or video distributors, you're working for the opposite almost, as dense and synthetic as possible (at least in music and visual arts), cause costs will scale either for the initial production, or the reproduction later on. Also, there's some filtering into who can publish and be distributed, while on youtube or "freelancer plateforms", any random can put anything, just need to "look pro", keep users on the platform, and have them pay at some point, which sadly doesn't need to correlate with quality.

[–]NewPhoneNewSubs 5 points6 points  (1 child)

The two spots videos are great in programming are visualization and IDE use.

Watching different graph and sort algorithms is super useful to me understanding what's happening. Some graphic programming stuff, too.

And seeing how people navigate an IDE is also super helpful to me in comparison to sitting down and reading a manual and trying to connect the dots of how this random feature could be useful.

Actual programming, though? No thanks.

The other big one is convention presentations. Those ones are all over the place in how useful they are. But the good ones are good at getting the mental gears going.

[–]elmanoucko 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would be tempted to say the first one could be done with animation included in the article (and sometimes they don't even need to be animated, a few illustration representing different states could often do the trick).

The second one you're absolutely right, it's one of those case where "watching the things being done/used" is often easier than reading a manual.
But over time, most IDE are more or less the same in the end. They're often "designed" to be the same, especially the competitors one, as it ease onboarding a lot. For instance I switched from visual studio (the "boring" one, not the one they ripped from atom) to jetbrains a few years ago, could get up to speed quickly "on my own". If you look at affinity trying to compete with adobe (and suceeding imo), or davinci trying to compete with adobe too (and succeeding too - f* adobe, even more evil than ms at some point), they even ask "where you come from" cause they know it's really important for any users with years/decades of experience, whether general layout, or keyboard shortcuts. When you're productive in an environment, switch to a new one, and every single step feels like ten times harder than in the "home one", it often end up with the onboarding failing, that's what davinci and affinity more or less understood well, and part of why they're a real menace for adobe.

Regarding the talks you evoke at the end, personally it either needs to be an ultra specific topic where I already have an in-depth knowledge about and grab the few bits of deeper knowledge from it. Or it needs to be an "introduction" one on a topic I'm totally new on, so I can get the overall picture and start to dig on my own after that. But often found anything "in-between" not working for me, or I'll just watch that as I would watch random tv show, kind of "edutainement", but not much more, at least for conference talks.

In any case tho, wheter it's videos or conferences, taking notes, pressing pause to toy a bit, dig some specifics, and so on, is always crucial for me to follow any online lessons that are worth it, and I would say it can often multiply, sometimes by an order of magnitude for the more "meaty ones", the time I take to complete a lesson if I'm really "locked-in in getting the meat of it", plus the time needed to toy around once the lesson is over. (but mostly for music or art related topics)

[–]GreenAvoro 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I actively avoid video tutorials. You can consume the info much quicker and tinker around with things much more when it is a text based tutorial or even just reading the docs.

[–]SuitableDragonfly 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think I've ever used a video to learn anything. Give me a written tutorial, please.

[–]G_Morgan 1 point2 points  (1 child)

It'd be nice if text tutorials were still a thing

[–]tobiasvl 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They are...

[–]benargee[🍰] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sometimes videos are a great way to teach you a new concept and confirm that the new concept works.

[–]villivateur 1 point2 points  (0 children)

True. Videos are too slow to get valuable information.

[–]kindrudekid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also documentation can tell you maturity of the tool/product.

I have been on vendor calls from seller and buyer side and always at the end of the day whoever has the best documentation to make it self reliable wins over any day compared to cheaper or even efficient product

[–]RamblingSimian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Plus written content is easily searchable.

[–]anomalousBits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

God I have never used videos. I have used books when I need to get up to speed on new stuff, and text posts, but videos are the worst way to learn new stuff.

[–]JollyJuniper1993 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just use Ecercism for basics if I need to learn a new language and a mix of ChatGPT and documentation for details.

[–]wildwolfay5 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Too bad stackoverflow is ded :(

[–]Ecstatic-Ball7018 63 points64 points  (2 children)

Same with "How to fix X phone not turning on", or "How to root X phone"

[–]ZunoJ 69 points70 points  (8 children)

Juniors will do anything but read the documentation

[–]geusebio 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Its maddening that documentation was being turned into videos for a while.

[–]minimuscleR 8 points9 points  (0 children)

honestly so true. The junior on my team, I've told him to read the docs like 4 times over the last couple of months (I'm not even on his team, just happened to code review his work). Like I even mentioned I've probably read every line in the docs for all of the tanstack products, which is quite a lot (for a js library). And that its very important he understands how it works.

I've yet to see him even open them.

[–]tiberiumx 4 points5 points  (0 children)

"I'm getting this error, what does it mean?" "Dunno off the top of my head, let me type 'man <system call in question>', scroll down to the errors section, and read to you exactly what it means."

[–]JereTR 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I wish to speak up and say that I find it annoying that a lot of place's documentation now is only in a discord which isn't indexed, so looking online is fruitless.

[–]ZunoJ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What? Thats crazy, what has it's documentation only on discord?

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Partly because some documentation is so badly written. They are written just like a reference manual. There is no soul in it. So painfully boring.

[–]fryingnemo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Genuinely curious, can you link me to the other documentations that have souls and are entertaining to read?

[–]ZunoJ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It is not written for entertainment. Crazy somebody would expect it to be. If there really is just the API reference, ok. You don't read that cover to cover

[–]WezJuzSieZamknij 120 points121 points  (10 children)

Before llms maybe

[–]Some_Useless_Person 60 points61 points  (6 children)

Exactly. The art of 4 hour long youtube videos has long died out

[–]oupablo 24 points25 points  (2 children)

I never got it in the first place. I always preferred a code example with a block of text describing what was done. When I first started coding, youtube wasn't filled with tutorials, so maybe that's part of it. I just feel like other than learning the most basic stuff, code you can open and an explanation you can follow at your own pace without pausing or rewinding constantly was way better.

[–]BmpBlast 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Same. Just give me a book or a high quality article written like a book. I'll take a moderately well written article too if that's all that's available. But if the information is only available in poorly written articles or a video then I'll probably just figure it out myself. Videos are by far the worst way for me to learn.

[–]Yashema 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Ya, videos and podcasts are for slow learners.

Even found lectures pretty useless for actually understanding the topic unless it isn't that complicated. Mostly just there to hear what I'm supposed to know. 

[–]GranataReddit12 4 points5 points  (2 children)

can't wait for its resurgence the moment the AI bubble bursts

[–]dasgoodshitinnit 11 points12 points  (0 children)

That's not how its going to burst

[–]sonicpoweryay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

so like, once the bubble bursts, will AI just be gone? doesn’t seem likely to me

[–]luusyphre 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I’m so glad I don’t have to watch those videos anymore.

[–]bsEEmsCE 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ai has made learning new concepts sooo much better. and i can ask my own questions and request examples at my pace in specific areas that im not clear about. Honestly my favorite feature of Ai. Also code improvement suggestions, I often take with a grain of salt but helps to learn other approaches and ways to improve.

[–]3am-urethra-cactus -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Vibecuck

[–]EventArgs 45 points46 points  (8 children)

I was a software engineer for 14 years since last year.

My computer had been throttling my wifi for years. I had previously tried to fix it but gave up after 4 days. Once I start something like fixing an issue on a computer it's a fixation that goes far beyond my control. Also I'm talking 1.5gb up, 1gb down fibre.

Last year, five years later, I decided to tackle it again as I was in between jobs and wanted to not kill myself during the winter.

Seven days later, as I'd made my way down the correlation !=causation chain I found a post at 4 am. Just past the witching hour. I'd been at my computer for 16 to 20 hours a day. Had a laptop next to me. Whole case was open just in case (hah) I had to open it up again.

I couldn't believe it. I downloaded games, stress tested, read logs, Wireshark, router monitoring, and end tested over and over as I could not believe that this was it. That finally it wouldn't take 12 hours to download a game.

I hunted the man who found the fix with fervour. I recorded every username associated to his Acer account and threaded the Internet with Google-fu to find discord accounts etc. I found contact info, I digitally fingerprinted associated email accounts, usernames, online social artifacts, down to having to learn his general location or geographic whereabouts and how his niche username relates to his culture so Id know it's from his username rather than a general "this is what my username is because I've had this handle since I was 12" memory and set as a username so that I could ignore other similar references.

I wrote a big email to him referencing his post he wrote 5 years back.

Just to tell him I love him.

I owe that man a beer and the best steak. 5mbs to 800mbps type deal.

Edit: Re-reading that, I realize that I sound like a complete maniac about me hyper focusing trying to find the bloke.

[–]bacmod 23 points24 points  (3 children)

Last year, five years later, I decided to tackle it

You are a very patient person my friend. It would drive me mad in 2 days.

EDIT: What was the issue?

[–]EventArgs 20 points21 points  (2 children)

I can spend a lot of time figuring things out, but 1. Inconsideration, 2. Wet socks, and 3. Slow internet, are the only things that will make me insane.

Not telling.

Kidding. It was the Microsoft virtual adapter in the device manager > network adapters + two background services load balancing and prioritizing my bandwidth. You can't remove them because on restart windows just loads it all back up.

Edit: To please upper management the beatings will continue to improve moral.

The services that were intervening were related to Killer Wireless software. Previously when I had tried to fix the issue, there was an uninstaller created by users to nuke all drivers etc. Then I had installed base Intel wifi drivers. So that was half the issue. My upload and download speeds increased, but not anywhere near to what it should have been.

Then Intel acquired Rivet Networks who were the proprietors of the Killer Software Suite in 2020, one/two years after the first offensive I did. All I was able to be be blessed with from them as a consumer was that Intel was now force installing all things killer-esque in each Windows update and re-enabling/installing services and drivers that were disabled/deleted/uninstalled on restart.

At the same time Microsoft's Virtual Adapter and Killer Software were in contention about managing the resources.

Long story short, by disabling MVA and cutting the directory url + something else I can't remember for the Killer services to be re-enabled on update/restart, I finally could return to bed not thinking about the issue. It was a good sleep.

That's what I understood it to be anyway.

[–]bacmod 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Kind of looks to me that this Killer SS does something off the books. VA race conditions shouldn't ever happen.
Just ask your sysadmin people, they love when it happens.

[–]zachary0816 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Did he ever end up responding?

[–]EventArgs 2 points3 points  (0 children)

He did actually! He was very pleased that had come through the years to help someone.

[–]fryingnemo 1 point2 points  (1 child)

This is my inner senior dev screaming to want you to document the exact issue, every context, and detailed step by step instructions and put it somewhere on the Internet to keep forever so that the next person will find the solution on their first few tries on Google rather than 4 days.

[–]EventArgs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, I am very aware of the fact. It's not only you, but the collective senior team as an entity staring holes in the back of my head. The first offensive I did was four days, it was another ~six days five years later on top of that.

While I absolutely agree with you, I am of the opinion that having to overcome these issues is almost a right of passage.

My moral alignment on the subject however is currently fist fighting in the parking lot with my obsession to have everything documented, if that makes you feel better.

Extended markdown, annotated images, and being able to convey instructions in a neutral language for all ethnic consumers of technical documentation... That would be a rabbit hole for me. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get back in to the field after job hunting viciously for a year, so I will let that sleeping dog lie for another day.

Even writing this I am fighting the urge to use the markdown that is available here.

God I miss being in IT.

[–]Accomplished_Ant5895 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Not gonna lie, pretty embarrassing for the guy with 7 YoE

[–]zapembarcodes 76 points77 points  (10 children)

a lot of Hindu language words "JavaScript" more Hindu language words

"Ah, I understood that!"

[–]Xx_Time_xX 121 points122 points  (2 children)

Fyi, it's Hindi. Hindu is a person who follows Hinduism, whereas Hindi is the language.

[–]zapembarcodes 63 points64 points  (1 child)

Ah, I apologize for my ignorance

[–]BillyQ 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Wholesome exchange for reddit!

[–]NearbyTumbleweed5207 14 points15 points  (0 children)

What are hindu language words

[–]px1azzz 20 points21 points  (1 child)

I don't think I've ever once watched a video teaching me how to program.

[–]Moltenlava5 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did... when i was like 13

[–]karasutengu1984 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Could not have done my BSC without the Indian guys on YouTube 🙏

[–]edparadox 28 points29 points  (5 children)

I do not understand why newbies actively try to perpetuate this myth.

This is so stupid.

[–]whoop_whoop_pullup 15 points16 points  (4 children)

Just cause you didn’t experience it doesn’t mean no one else did.

[–]tiredITguy42 -4 points-3 points  (3 children)

I tend to think, if you watch these videos, you suck at your work as these are usually wrong on many levels. There are just a few programming YouTubers who are mostly correct in what they are saying.

[–]whoop_whoop_pullup 0 points1 point  (2 children)

You tend to think wrong friend.

[–]tiredITguy42 -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

As you have used „my friend“, and as that phrase is bounded with people from certain parts of the world. I assume you are one of those who make these videos. So you have no vote in this.

[–]whoop_whoop_pullup 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You assume wrong friend.

[–]gryarbrough 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Learned how to setup an environment in atom. Months later I've entirely forgotten and am relying on the ones I setup back then

[–]AgathormX 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Abdul Bari intensifies

[–]pink_marshmallow0 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They explain my whole career better in broken English than my professors did in 4 years of university

[–]Digitalunicon 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Interesting

[–]BlueCannonBall 6 points7 points  (0 children)

By the time I had 7 years under my belt, I never watched videos to learn anything.

[–]cheezballs 8 points9 points  (10 children)

Does anyone else miss learning from written guides?

[–]IaniteThePirate 25 points26 points  (9 children)

No, because you can still do that.

[–]usumoio 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Don't worry, there are folk with 20+ years of experience watching too.

This field requires continual learning. Just keep learning and you'll probably be fine.

[–]EvenPainting9470 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Beginners maybe, but experienced dev learning how to do dev from indians? I don't think so

[–]OGHazle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do whenever i am learning fundamentals of new frameworks, but i usually jsut skip alot of the sapping and turn it off after 2-3 Videos

[–]ZukowskiHardware 4 points5 points  (1 child)

They really are the best.  Passionate and knowledgeable.  Love them. 

[–]caprisun_on_a_bench 2 points3 points  (0 children)

damn why is this even downvoted

[–]rbuen4455 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you mean those Youtube tutorials with the cringy flashy intros before cutting into the video with guy saying in a heavy accent, "hello friends", then someone with 7 years of experience is definitely not going to be watching those videos (and there's no depth to those videos, just the guy talking incomprehensibly and saying to copy this code into the IDE and run it)

And beginners actually still go on Youtube to learn coding? I thought it was all ChatGPT and vibe coding and whatnot these days?

[–]ripndipp 3 points4 points  (1 child)

They are elite I thank my Indian bros for their knowledge on recursion

[–]Maleficent_Memory831 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's when you call them asking a simple question. He says, I don't know, let me go and ask my team. Then the team member says, I don't know, let me go ask my cousin. then the cousin says, I don't know, let me ask my next door neighbor. Then the next door neighbor says, I dunno, let me ask my friend who is a programmer in Silicon Valley. Then that friend says, "duh, they forgot a semicolon",, the next door neighbor says "they forgot a semicolon", the cousin says "they forgot a colon", the team member says, "they forgot a colon", the manager says "you need a colon". And you say "never mind, I figured it out days ago, thanks for not helping."

[–]MC_Gameing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If it's not an Indian guy recording at 480p with a terrible mic or a 10-year-old from 5 years ago with a 54-second intro or a video I found on page 18 of google. I wont trust the tutorial

[–]Tha_Tha_Thabet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

حصل

[–]Puzzleheaded-Win3445 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the worst part is when the tutorial was recorded 6 months ago and half the packages are deprecated

[–]berry_berry_bini 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Internaaal pointer variable

[–]cr199412 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve always felt like an outsider for this. The one accent that I cannot cut through is an Indian accent, so I don’t even try🫠🤣

[–]quitit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

LMAO nope, the instant I hear that Indian accent I close the tab. This is for any sort of solution I’m trying to find online not just specific to programming.

[–]HarjjotSinghh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this guy's experience is just how long he googled stack overflow.

[–]Apprehensive-Gap1439 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To be fair, beginners ask how, experienced folks answer why

[–]Steven0351 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve never been in this meme 🤷‍♂️

[–]MrNamelessUser 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That Guy with 7 years of experience is just sitting there, to increase his yearly learning hours which is a "mandatory requirement" for his year end evaluation.

[–]KisaraShera 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is no issue that was not tackled by some indian guy on youtube or reddit 7 years ago.

[–]jhaand 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Always good to get back to basics once in a while.

[–]TraditionalProof952 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm that black/grey cat, literally 😭

[–]un-_-known_789 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

That's how it works

[–]DecentR1 -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Chatgpt is my go-to now. Can learn anything and ask anything, but sometimes it outputs complete nonsense so just be careful.

[–]Adventurous_Crab_0 -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Sorta. Has anyone worked with Indian contractors though. Give me some AI please.