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I spent 3 weeks copying code from videos before a guy at the library showed me I was doing it backwards
I was stuck on a simple to-do list app for 3 weeks, just copying lines from YouTube tutorials and pasting them in, and nothing ever worked when I tried to build something on my own. Last Tuesday a guy named Dev at the Austin library code meetup watched me for 5 minutes and said "you're reading code, you're not writing it." He made me close the video and try to type the loop from memory, and I bombed it hard, which is exactly what I needed to see. Now I write the broken version first and look stuff up only when I get stuck. How do you all handle the urge to just copy paste when a tutorial moves too fast?
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oliviapatel12d ago
That "write the broken version first" thing works but it's not quite the full picture. Typing from memory is step one, but you also need to change one small thing and predict what happens before you run it. Like if the to-do list loop adds items to an array, guess what breaks when the array is empty. Write your guess down, then run it. Being wrong on purpose teaches you faster than just retyping stuff you half remember. The Dev guy was right about closing the video, but memory alone will just make you memorize syntax instead of understanding it.
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