I don't have much to add to Jacob Colborn's thorough and well-articulated response, but I thought I could share my own perspective as a coding newbie who is just beginning to break out of tutorial purgatory herself. It is possible!
I think that what really helped me to feel comfortable about starting to build my own projects was just kind of letting the things I've learned percolate in my brain for bit. When I started learning some Javascript concepts (especially DOM manipulation) I quickly became overwhelmed and felt like I would never be able to do anything without following a tutorial. Nothing made sense after the video was over.
But I kept working at it a little bit each day. I felt like I wasn't making any progress, but I was. Now writing Javascript comes easier. What took me 30 minutes of racking my brains and googling now takes a few minutes. Be patient, be persistent, and don't be afraid to use tutorials as long as you are truly thinking through the process and writing out the code along with the instructor.
And absolutely, building your own things - they can be simple things - will help you see where the gaps are in your knowledge. Then you can go from there.
I don't have much to add to Jacob Colborn's thorough and well-articulated response, but I thought I could share my own perspective as a coding newbie who is just beginning to break out of tutorial purgatory herself. It is possible!
I think that what really helped me to feel comfortable about starting to build my own projects was just kind of letting the things I've learned percolate in my brain for bit. When I started learning some Javascript concepts (especially DOM manipulation) I quickly became overwhelmed and felt like I would never be able to do anything without following a tutorial. Nothing made sense after the video was over.
But I kept working at it a little bit each day. I felt like I wasn't making any progress, but I was. Now writing Javascript comes easier. What took me 30 minutes of racking my brains and googling now takes a few minutes. Be patient, be persistent, and don't be afraid to use tutorials as long as you are truly thinking through the process and writing out the code along with the instructor.
And absolutely, building your own things - they can be simple things - will help you see where the gaps are in your knowledge. Then you can go from there.
Thank you Madeline