Escaping the tutorial trap
For a while I measured progress in courses finished. Neat checkmarks, zero scars. The problem with tutorials is they remove the one thing that actually teaches you: getting stuck.
The shift
I started a rule: for every hour of watching, an hour of building something that wasn't in the video. Break it, fix it, look it up only after I'd been confused on purpose.
You don't learn to debug by reading about debugging.
What changed
- I stopped fearing the red error text and started reading it
- My questions got sharper, and so did the answers
- I built things I could actually point to
The checkmarks felt good. The scars taught me more.