As more and more people start their programming journey, I'm finding that the number of video tutorials are increasing. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Of course people will be making video tutorials showing off the basics of a cool new language, package, or feature. Heck, I might even start making video tutorials. But I'm also finding that more and more learners are solely depending on video tutorials when they start learning something new.
Now, I don't think that video tutorials are bad. I've learned a lot of really good things from them myself. But I'm always amazed at the lack of awareness, by new programmers, that written documentation even exists for whatever they are trying to use.
I use Flutter a lot in my free time, so I'll use it as an example here. Flutter has awesome documentation. Here's an example from the Color class
Being able to read and understand this form of documentation is invaluable as you progress on your development journey. In it you'll find useful constructors, parameter descriptions and even common examples!
There will be many times that all you have to learn from is a set of documentation, and being able to quickly reference it and understand the basics will help you iterate quickly, stand out in the company that you're at, and can even help you be more productive.
Now all of that being said, I want to reiterate that I think video tutorials are good! But I don't think that they replace being able to read and understand documentation. A healthy balance of both is what's needed to really thrive and grow as a developer these days.
If you're just learning your first language, or your fifth, I'd recommend taking a look through the documentation to see what you can find! You might be surprised by the little gems that are hidden away in there!
What do you think? Am I being too harsh? Let me know in the comments if you read through documentation before starting a new project, or if you jump right into video tutorials!
Thanks for reading,
Carl
Top comments (16)
On the positive side, videos are better than the reference documentation to give you the big picture and a sense of familiarity.
On the other hand, it feels too passive to me. I'm following a video course right now and I sit uncomfortably in my chair, wanting to do something.
I wonder if programming videos are not the poor man's version of pair programming, one of the industry best kept secrets.
There's definitely a place for video tutorials, but a healthy balance between them and documentation is what I've found is the sweet spot for my learning style.
Just like you said, they give you a great big picture overview and maybe a few keywords or ideas to lookup when you open up the documentation.
I rarely watch video tutorials because they are too slow/too fast for me. I prefer reading (maybe a transcript of the tutorial)
Also, if a package is documented well enough, it's easy to learn. I learnt angular completely from the docs
Same for me, I vastly prefer reading docs or tuts over slogging through a Youtube vid!
I just can't do video tutorials for most things, in my former career in IT, to knitting, to what I do know, welding and machining. I prefer having my books with me. I cannot stand videos for coding at all, it just throws me off, unless its done very well. I don't learn well by video, but seeing someone typing code onto their monitor on a low res youtube video is just frustrating.
Give me the documentation any day. I also say this as someone who can't sit and watch a movie or TV show without doing something else with my hands. I knit or draw or something. When I was in college, we weren't taught by video. And my welding instructor is colour blind, he learned more by sound, which employers get a kick out of, too. I can hear your bad welding a mile away!
Yes, totally agree. It takes someone with really good communication skills to keep me engaged and "entertained" enough to stick with it!
No you're not harsh at all, in fact this should be plain obvious to anyone ... and not only shouldn't video tutorials be replacing documentation, they should also not replace good ol' written tutorials (blog posts) !
Ya. Even a book is more useful than Video tutorials. I find books to be way more helpful in clearing concepts. I watched a ton of videos on how to use git but I only learned to
commit,pushandpull(And honestly I thought that was everything in git) until I read the bookPro Git. When reading the book, I realised how so many important things were just completely ignored in the video tutorials.I would go further than that.
At the beginning of my career, I was mostly looking for answers on Google.
Now, I'm mostly using the documentation. Why?
But it's a question of preference and also depends where you are in your career. For beginners, some documentation is too complicated to understand and ask for too much prior knowledge.
Sometimes, it's also good to look at a video when you're only mildly interested by the subject or because you know that you remember things better that way.
In short and as always: "it depends". Of the context, your personal preferences, and what you're trying to do.
Yeah, so true! Sometimes video or stack overflow can be really helpful, but the documentation never lies!
Great post! Really agree with you on this one.
I'm still fairly early in my programming journey and I started mostly by going through video tutorials. I used to learn almost everything through videos on youtube because I felt documentation pages are really wordy, hard to understand and I generally took a long time to find for the information I need. I was so dependent on learning through videos that I used to search for answers of my code on youtube, so that I could follow along. Looking back it, that was quite stupid of me haha.
A while back, I started making documentation as my go to and it is life changing.. I started getting things done so much faster than before. That 10 minutes of video I put myself through, I learn so much more and in depth just by reading the documentation in that same amount of time.
Now, I mostly watch videos only if I am learning something completely new and I want a big picture of it or if I need more clarifications from the documentation I do not quite understand.
Awesome! I'm glad you found the right combination for your learning style! I'm the same way, I like videos for big picture stuff but I always seem to dig into the documentation to figure out what other options I have, or other things the videos didn't go over.
yes official documentation is always recommended
I currently learning about the redux to use with nextjs application but I started to watch videos tutorials on youtube I realized that is some videos do not give all property or needs, of course, it gives basics but the features are coming every month, I recommend watching updated videos have a recently uploaded 5 month or 1 year ago.
Sorry for my English grammar I keep learning by type the more.
Great documentation > great video tutorials > bad video tutorials > bad documentation