Why You Should Ditch Tutorials and Build Projects Instead

After a decade of coding and mentoring, I've noticed a disturbing pattern: developers who consume endless tutorials but can't build anything from scratch. It's time to break this cycle.

The Tutorial Trap

Tutorial hell is real, and I've watched countless developers get stuck in it. You follow along, everything makes sense, you feel productive - but then you try to build something on your own and freeze up completely.

The problem? Tutorials give you the illusion of learning while actually making you dependent on hand-holding. You're not learning to solve problems; you're learning to follow instructions.

Learning vs. Memorizing

When you follow a tutorial, you're essentially copy-pasting someone else's thought process. The instructor already solved all the problems, made all the decisions, and handled all the edge cases. You're just typing along.

But real development isn't about following a predetermined path. It's about facing unknown problems and figuring out solutions. That's a completely different skill that tutorials don't teach.

The Project-First Approach

Instead of tutorials, start with a project idea. Something you actually want to build, no matter how simple. A personal website, a habit tracker, a recipe organizer - anything that solves a problem you have.

Here's what happens when you build projects:

You learn by necessity: Need user authentication? You'll research it when you actually need it, not because a tutorial told you to implement it.

You make real decisions: Which database to use? How to structure your components? These choices become meaningful when they're yours to make.

You handle real problems: Bugs, edge cases, deployment issues - all the messy stuff that tutorials skip over but real projects demand.

My Learning Strategy

When I encounter something new, I don't look for comprehensive tutorials. I start building and learn as I go:

1. Define a simple goal: "I want to build a todo app with React"
2. Start coding immediately: Create the basic structure, don't overthink
3. Research when stuck: Need to handle form inputs? Google it then, not before
4. Iterate and improve: Add features, refactor, make it better

This approach taught me more in months than years of tutorial consumption ever could.

Documentation Over Tutorials

Official documentation is your best friend. It's comprehensive, up-to-date, and teaches you to think like the tool's creators intended. MDN for web APIs, React docs for React, Express docs for Express.

Documentation teaches you to fish. Tutorials give you a fish that's probably already spoiled.

The Confidence Problem

Tutorial followers often lack confidence because they've never proven to themselves that they can solve problems independently. When you build projects from scratch, even small ones, you develop genuine confidence in your abilities.

I've seen developers transform from "I can't do this" to "I'll figure it out" just by completing a few self-directed projects.

Practical Example

Instead of following a "Build a CRUD app" tutorial, try this:

• Goal: Create a personal expense tracker
• Start simple: Just add/display expenses
• Expand organically: Add categories when you need them, add charts when you want visualization
• Research on demand: Need date handling? Look up date libraries when the problem appears

You'll learn the same concepts as any tutorial, but you'll own the knowledge because you earned it through necessity.

When Tutorials Are Useful

I'm not completely anti-tutorial. They're great for:

• Getting a quick overview of new technologies
• Understanding specific concepts (how closures work, what's new in ES2024)
• Seeing different approaches to problems you've already solved

But they should supplement project-based learning, not replace it.

The Bottom Line

Stop consuming and start creating. The best way to learn programming is to program, not to watch someone else program.

Pick a project, start building, get stuck, research solutions, implement them, repeat. It's messier, slower at first, and definitely more frustrating than following tutorials.

But it's also how you become a real developer instead of a tutorial completer.

Your future self - the one confidently tackling complex problems and building amazing things - will thank you for taking the harder path.