To people making shitty guides/tutorials.
from Emmie@lemm.ee to programming@programming.dev on 21 Feb 08:32
https://lemm.ee/post/56209460
from Emmie@lemm.ee to programming@programming.dev on 21 Feb 08:32
https://lemm.ee/post/56209460
Don’t. Just don’t.
Go on a walk. Feed your dog. Maybe read a fucking book. Do literally anything else.
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I get people that make tutorials for “content” even if they suck at their job, but I CANNOT get over video tutorials where someone gets completely lost and doesn’t cut it out of the video.
Would it kill you to edit that out and stop wasting my time?!
I think there’s a key distinction to be made between a “tutorial” and a “vlog.” Some videos you watch to learn things, and other videos you watch to be entertained by the struggle.
(Admittedly, for the latter the examples I have in my head are all makers/artists, not programmers, and I’m not sure I’d be as entertained watching somebody fuck up a software config as I am watching them panic as their epoxy resin pour goes wrong.)
Also… the actual good stuff has a good chance of not being free, or not being on YouTube—it’s just the reality of our world.
When you look for YouTube videos of random people, you can get anything, from good programmers to horrible ones. You can’t really require quality from strangers posting stuff for fun.
The good stuff is usually hidden in low view hell (or in text form, stuck on personal blogs nobody reads). Getting an audience is mostly a property of marketing, not quality. There's not a lot of natural overlap between those that can teach well and those that can market well.
At the same time, that is part of the developer experience, so the tutorial is still accurate
When you solve the issue, take a pause and then walk back the problem and how to fix it.
If it’s a “forgot where something was”, take a pause then start with “sorry bout that, it’s this…”.
Own the mistake, learn from it, let others learn from it. But dont waste everyone’s time
To me in most cases it’s the opposite. I don’t watch video tutorials to solve a specific problem (sorry, Roal Van de Paar!), but to get into something. And therefore I prefer to see the problem solving in between and the workflow for that activity. If it really tends to waste my time, I just skip forward.
I think those are more interesting. I like seeing the process.
Text > video
FFS, today when you look for something on start page or any search engine you get YouTube links or AI shit from non related websites.
At the time you could put Reddit on your search but we all know that won’t be a solution anymore, plus, because of people like me most of Reddit results are now a chain of deleted - deleted - deleted messages 😄
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I work on the apple ecosystem too, but it came from my tests of making an hackinstosh on an old Lenovo.
It then discovered that I could use the same tools with the same shell language, doing the same tiling WM etc etc, all of that on an always working OS that I didn’t need to debug when shit got wrong (I was using Arch, BTW).
From then on I always work on 2nd hand refurbished macs. My daily desk tool in an m2 Mac mini and this thing is amazing. Linux is now only present on my server and gaming PC.
But maps are on organic maps, not apple 😉
I also have a M2 Mac Mini. It’s my favorite computer among all I ever had so far. Being able to run Windows ARM on a VM and install anything I want if I ever need it is priceless. And I still keep Ubuntu and Arch installed on a VM just to play with them sometimes.
Sometimes I prefer video… But usually not.
E.g. this channel has fantastic videos: youtube.com/@therustybits
Today I had the pleasure of trying to search for how to shift a chartjs array and finally had to try and watch a “tutorial video” where they allegedly discussed it.
Cut to me clicking around just trying to find the screenshot where they are actually doing the thing that I want to do, and then they proceed to fuck up its usage three times with much scrolling back and forth through their example code that they didn’t show in full anywhere and rapidly clicking between windows while they got their shit together.
I just wanted to see like, three lines of code.
Maybe I should have just asked chatgpt.
The most infuriating is it’s probably intentional. You did spend more time on their video now didn’t you?
I loaded the video, paused, jump jump jump jump jumped through the timeline looking at the thumbnail images, about 5 seconds of actual playback while I watched them mess it up, more minor adjustments in the timeline, paused for 15 seconds at the thing I actually wanted, closed the video.
Good luck getting any kind of decent metrics out of that.
I can skim documents at 800 words a minute, they are mostly nicely arranged and indexed/sectioned. Compare that to videos where half the words are “um, so”, and it’s no wonder I prefer text.
And if you want to look at some lines before you can use your eyes to literally just look there. Instead of fiddling with the stupid -10 seconds button.
Tutorials are largely pretty shit:
Sad thing is, you only realise once you learn a fair bit. All these “lifestyle” programmers I used to follow that were literally making out they were the next Carmack, just re-wording Wikipedia or the intro docs. From someone who is only a couple of years into their job as a React copy and paste engineer. Now if I see an intro where they’re making coffee and lofi is playing I click off, give me a 420p video with a distorted mic and constant electrical humming.
Then you have the Udemy courses where you can just chuck in the recent patch notes and say the course is updated to 2025 even though you’re referencing dead tech in the tutorial then an hour later up pops a PowerPoint please disregard the section about API’s for dot matrix printers.
All these code gurus with code quality of chatgpt 🤢 yet fancy lighting setups and VFX intros. Still, sometimes you can find a real gem in the wild on some humble but informative website.
what happened? need more info
Who doesn't love impossible to follow variable names?
Monads are like burritos?
Erm ackshually a monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctors
So only good tutorials/ guides are allowed?
How does one get from shitty to good if they can’t try to begin with?
Does this apply to other things, like coding, as well?
Yes.
We absolutely should.
Back in my day, there were no guides; except for books that had to be bought or borrowed, one learned by hacking code until it worked or, better yet, had a helpful person in the same room give tips.
After the internet came into being, there started to be guides, at first many were ok. Then people realized they could write slop and make money or get internet points or credit. So now here we are, today, with many horrible tutorials, some middling, some good ones, about to be buried by AI
I just wrote a blog post and it was shit but at least I know what to do better next time.
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The question is, who decides what shitty guide is. You? Let people write what they want, you don’t have to use or read it. Also why not tell those you write shitty guides and tell them what is shitty, so they can improve. Instead trash talk on an unrelated forum??
If you don’t have necessary experience and are pretending to be an expert sharing your ‘knowledge’ on the web… You should stop.
That does not answer my question. Who is judging what is bad and shitty guides, and who has the necessary experience? I disagree with you. Let people write articles that YOU think are shitty. Beginners or professional grade knowledge, I am for the open web where noobs share their knowledge as well. Assuming they are written by a human, not talking about Ai.
Do you have any article as an example what you consider shitty and you do not allow to be posted on the free web?
Well if you don’t know what constitutes good code and what constitutes bad code practices and don’t see how much crap is on the web, not even compilable sometimes, then you probably are among the very people who should refrain from teaching others and/or cease sharing your ‘valuable knowledge’
In fact, I insist you to do so
Don’t make this a personal attack. Do you have any article you consider to be shitty? As an example, so we are on the same page. Do you ever wrote them a message or did an issue, so they are aware of the issue and can correct the mistake? Do you think they read this post of you and stop posting, because you do not agree with what they consider to be useful?
Sorry but, you are not the person who decides who can post and who cannot. I have seen shitty articles that others find useful, and I saw good articles that others find shitty. Do you get what I mean?
As I said previously. Do not attempt to teach or guide in any field you have no idea about. Sorry you feel attacked by my post but I have slightly better things to be doing than placating harmed egos on the web.
So you don’t even have a single example. Well I consider your post as useless and spam. Please stop posting useless and spam like this. Edit: Also you still don’t answer a single question. Who is the judge? Who do I ask if my posts are okay to post? You?
I see I struck some nerve here, calm down and just evaluate yourself if what you post has any value. Do you feel confident about your skills?
You keep ignoring my questions. You think these answers and your post is valuable?? It contributes to spam and has no value.
When we teach other people something we take on a responsibility. I know responsibility is not a popular word these days but it’s true. We are responsible to make sure our material is of solid quality. I personally feel nowhere close to the great honor of providing knowledge despite many years of study.
Sure I could perhaps share some selected things but I feel that is too great burden to act as an authority. Of course life isn’t perfect and sometimes we must rely on less than ideal material hastily to meet the demands placed upon us or even unfortunately we find ourselves in the position of a teacher prematurely. We should strive to reduce amount of bad habits and spaghetti code made by beginners who take in dubious courses.
If we want to live in a world of readable and maintainable code we shouldn’t produce antithesis of such as ‘guides’
If you know what constitutes good code you probably won’t be browsing for tutorials. Tutorials, even the bad ones, are useful for beginners. If you aren’t a beginner, don’t look for them and you won’t be so pissed by it.
You talk like you are a professional, but professionals know where to look and where to not look for reliable information.
I’ve seen way too many tutorials that are trying to teach JavaScript, and mixing up JavaScript with Java… Saying that Java is just another, shorter, name for JavaScript.
I’m also a big fan of the open web. It’s good that people can post without needing a big publisher or newspaper to back them. But there are definite drawbacks as well. It can be very hard for someone who is trying to learn basic concepts, to know who actually knows what they’re talking about, since anyone can post anything.
I avoid things from dev.to and Medium like the plague, unless I can’t find anything, anywhere else. However, something that’s shitty for you might not be shitty to someone else.
It will just get worse with all the AI slop. Read the docs first, always.
The first step towards being great at anything is being shitty at that thing.