A senior dev told me to stop trying to understand every line before writing it

Back when I started learning Python 3 months ago, I would read tutorials line by line until I got every detail. A guy on a coding forum told me to just copy the code and run it first, then figure it out later. I thought he was giving lazy advice. But I tried it with a simple web scraper project and finished it in 2 days instead of a week. Now I use that approach for most things and it cuts my frustration way down. Has anyone else found that overthinking the details holds you back?

2 comments

2 Comments

ross.kevin1mo ago

I ran into this exact wall when I tried learning React last year. I spent 3 days reading the docs and watching tutorials, trying to memorize every hook and lifecycle method before writing a single line. A buddy told me to just build a simple todo app and look stuff up as I went. I did it in one evening, broke half the features, but by the end I actually understood how state and props worked because I had messed with them directly. That project took me from stuck to shipping in about 5 hours of hands-on time.

alice_palmer2029d ago

Whoa, wait. You spent three days just reading before writing any code? Thats wild to me. I think a lot of people get stuck in that loop though, trying to be perfect from the start. @ross.kevin probably saved you a ton of wasted time by pushing you to just mess around with it. Breaking stuff is honestly the fastest way to learn, even if it feels like you're failing at first.