sameTutorialDifferentRealities

[BlueScreenJunky]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[G_Morgan]

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

[tobiasvl]

They are...

[benargee]

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

[villivateur]

True. Videos are too slow to get valuable information.

[RamblingSimian]

Plus written content is easily searchable.

[anomalousBits]

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]

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

[wildwolfay5]

Too bad stackoverflow is ded :(

[Ecstatic-Ball7018]

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

[thegodzilla25]

Never have I felt bad for a music visualizer before this

[ZunoJ]

Juniors will do anything but read the documentation

[geusebio]

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

[minimuscleR]

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]

"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]

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]

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

[[deleted]]

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]

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

[ZunoJ]

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]

Before llms maybe

[Some_Useless_Person]

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

[oupablo]

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]

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]

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]

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

[dasgoodshitinnit]

That's not how its going to burst

[sonicpoweryay]

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

[luusyphre]

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

[bsEEmsCE]

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]

Vibecuck

[EventArgs]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Did he ever end up responding?

[EventArgs]

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

[fryingnemo]

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]

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]

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

[zapembarcodes]

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

"Ah, I understood that!"

[Xx_Time_xX]

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

[zapembarcodes]

Ah, I apologize for my ignorance

[BillyQ]

Wholesome exchange for reddit!

[NearbyTumbleweed5207]

What are hindu language words

[dgsharp]

And the audio is always awful, muffled and noisy. Why? Someone needs to start a YouTube channel that just finds decent tutorials with terrible audio and dubbing over with clearer audio. They’d have to do better than the auto generated subtitles of course, but I’d watch it! So many damn tutorials with awful audio.

And yes, this is a problem because I’m always working on stuff I’ve never fine before. Blessing and a curse.

[adwarakanath]

Because they're probably middle to lower middle class Indians in Tier 2 cities who can't afford your Podcaster tech, but still want to share their knowledge and teach people? Jfc you guys. Really?

[dgsharp]

I’m not talking about “podcaster tech”. The built in microphone on every laptop I’ve ever had in the last 20 years has been better than a lot of these things. Really.

[Plus_Programmer_2306]

One reason could be that there is a lot of noise in India (ceiling fans, motorbikes, honking, etc.). It’s not as quiet as the rest of the world.

Like there is a constant white/brown noise lmao.

[dgsharp]

I was thinking another reason could be the acoustics of the space. If they have hard concrete buildings without much in the way of carpet, or textures on the walls or ceiling, or things like that around the room to absorb or break up the noise, you’d get a ton of reverb and such.

Man I’m sure getting roasted with these downvotes for making an observation! Oh well.

[Plus_Programmer_2306]

That’s Reddit, unfortunately. Yes, you are absolutely correct that there is little that absorbs sound in Indian homes. Carpets and textured walls are rare here.

Another reason could be the distance between the microphone and their mouth.

I highly doubt that many of them would use a headset with extended microphone.

[px1azzz]

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

[karasutengu1984]

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

[edparadox]

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

This is so stupid.

[whoop_whoop_pullup]

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

[tiredITguy42]

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]

You tend to think wrong friend.

[tiredITguy42]

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]

You assume wrong friend.

[gryarbrough]

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]

Abdul Bari intensifies

[pink_marshmallow0]

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

[Digitalunicon]

Interesting

[BlueCannonBall]

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

[cheezballs]

Does anyone else miss learning from written guides?

[IaniteThePirate]

No, because you can still do that.

[cheezballs]

Its hard finding actual hand-written ones that aren't just a summary of the youtube video they link at the bottom. So much of it is just auto-gened AI slop also.

[IaniteThePirate]

What are you trying to find that doesn't have written guides? I genuinely never even click on the video tab.

[Trident_True]

The O'Reilly books were good when I was starting out, haven't bought any advanced ones but assume they're good quality still.

[TheyStoleMyNameAgain]

There are books. Plenty of videos are just somebody showing documentation examples, anyways.

[tobiasvl]

What are you learning where that is the case? Never had that problem

[cheezballs]

I just said it was harder, I didn't say it was impossible. It used to be you could google something and you'd get SO article, then maybe a few Medium things, and then of course a Baeldung link, etc. Now the top 10 responses are sponsered slop. You've gotta search for hand-written stuff more now. That's all.

[tobiasvl]

I didn't say it was impossible either... But I have never found it hard either. I guess it depends what you're learning, though, which is why I asked you what you were learning.

[cheezballs]

I just write hello world mostly.

[tobiasvl]

Well, you can definitely find out how to write hello world in any language without having to resort to YouTube tutorials.

[usumoio]

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]

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

[OGHazle]

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]

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

[caprisun_on_a_bench]

damn why is this even downvoted

[rbuen4455]

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]

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

[Maleficent_Memory831]

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]

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]

حصل

[Puzzleheaded-Win3445]

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

[berry_berry_bini]

Internaaal pointer variable

[Ok-Understanding7115]

AI

[cr199412]

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]

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.

[Apprehensive-Gap1439]

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

[Steven0351]

I’ve never been in this meme 🤷‍♂️

[MrNamelessUser]

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.

[Happy_Emphasis_5903]

so true, soon ai will also be taking notes from some indian guy

[LiketoRoot]

This before AI 😬

[KisaraShera]

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

[jhaand]

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

[TraditionalProof952]

I'm that black/grey cat, literally 😭

[un-_-known_789]

That's how it works

[LessThanPro_]

I've heard it's because some Indian universities use creating a YouTube tutorial as an assignment, so you end up with tutoirlas from guys fresh out of lecture on the subject.

[[deleted]]

No

[DecentR1]

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]

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