Today I went to the grocery store with my daughter and she was on her bike, which does have wheels, those side-wheels that helps kids while they are yet learning how to proper ride a bicycle. I was joking around with her saying that I'd take off the side-wheels so she would learn properly and for good and she went:

No dad, please don't! Or I'll keep falling forever

But isn't this how we usually learn? We must make mistakes and learn from them, improve ourselves and keep repeating the cycle until we don't make the same mistakes again. That's how I learnt at least, and that's how I LIKE to learn.

I have obviously watch video tutorials for this and that but that's my point. Keep coding tutorial content is like riding a wheeled bike. You can do that, but at the moment you get yourself into the market, get a big project or something, you're lost, and doomed.

If you're a beginner which just started learning or someone who is already learning for a while, looking for your first opportunity, STOP WATCHING VIDEO TUTORIALS, NOW. This will NOT give you what you're looking for.

One of the fastest way to learn new technology is a 2 steps guide:

1 - Read the docs

2 - Code

Did you notice I didn't add a "watch a youtube tutorial for it?" Because that's not gonna get you to learn stuff, you will be just a code-parrot, at the most. Code parrot is someone that only knows how to reproduce/copy-and-paste code.

To get a job you must know some answers and those answers are only given to you when you practice, when you try to code and debug why the heck it is not working, and keep digging the problem and the internet about it until you finally solve that issue, and my friend, that is the precise moment where you learn the most.

And it doesn't really matter "what to code".

Oh Rômulo, but I have no ideas, how can I start?

It doesn't really matter what you will code, don't expect you're build a world saving startup on your first projects, as a matter of fact, you should even delete that code after you're done with it. Just keep coding, useless stuff, that's how you practice.

So this is my advice to you, stop copying and pasting tutorial's code from youtube, start creating your own code, from the scratch, and if you're out of ideas on what to create, why don't you help open-source projects, libraries? That might even get you that job you're looking for, or at least some real-world experience to leverage the next interview ;)

There's this tag about open-source issues which is "good-first-contribution". That's usually issues easy to solve and help you get started with some real-world coding challenges, that's gonna get you to the next level quickly.

It's time to put your wheeled bike aside and get yourself into the real world, shall we?