How to Escape Tutorial Hell as a Developer

What is tutorial hell? Tutorial hell is when you watch one programming tutorial after another without actually progressing. Maybe you've experienced this before: When you watch the instructor explain, it all seemingly makes sense. But when you then try to write some code yourself, you don't know what to do. Maybe you even take notes while you're watching a video. But when you close the tutorial and try to do it yourself, you go blank. You always rely on step-by-step instructions and feel unable to build something yourself. Or really understand programming. And maybe you're worried that you will never find a job this way. Why you are stuck in tutorial hell You land in tutorial hell because your learning approach is too passive. Just like you can't learn to swim from watching someone else do it, you can't learn programming from watching tutorials. You need to actually build stuff. Don't get me wrong, programming tutorials have their use. But you might be using them wrong. Passively watching a programming tutorial will do almost nothing for you. But even following the instructor step by step, and copying their code, is a bad approach. How to get out of tutorial hell and learn programming effectively As I already touched upon, building your own projects is the way to get out of tutorial hell. Every programmer should have some side projects to tinker with, try out stuff, and stay up to date. This is especially true for beginners and those still early in the learning process. Learning happens by making mistakes and then fixing them yourself. The only way to do this is to write your own code and then search for a solution whenever you're stuck. When you do this, you will naturally start to understand and remember the code and programming concepts you're using.