Tutorials that copy paste from documentation are useless for beginners

I noticed this pattern after trying to learn Python for about 2 months. Every tutorial I found on YouTube just copies the code from the official docs and reads it out loud. But they never explain WHY you'd use a for loop over a while loop in a real situation. My buddy who codes for a living told me "the docs tell you what, not when" and that clicked for me. Has anyone else found a resource that actually teaches the thinking behind the code?

3 comments

3 Comments

mark_green5d ago

Whoa wait, you really think newbies getting mad at free tutorials is a common thing? That kinda shocks me because every beginner I've met is just desperate for any help they can get, not picky about production quality. I mean sure, some people might skip around and not build stuff, but when a tutorial literally just reads the docs back at you, that's not teaching, that's just making noise.

amy_martin5d ago

Oh man, I see this complaint all the time but I'm not totally convinced it's that big of a deal. In my experience, most learners get stuck because they skip around and don't actually build anything, not because a tutorial paraphrased the docs. I've seen total newbies get mad at a free tutorial for not holding their hand, then turn around and use a paid course that literally explains the same for loop example but with fancier editing. Your buddy isn't wrong about docs lacking real-world context, but I'd argue you pick up the "when" by just trying to solve a small problem and failing a few times.

kellygrant5d ago

Hearing you out on this @amy_martin, because yeah, I've seen the same thing happen a lot. Some people just bounce from tutorial to tutorial without ever writing code on their own, then blame the tutorial for not forcing them to build something. But I get why it frustrates beginner's when a tutorial is basically just a slow reading of the docs with no extra examples. The real test is when they try to use the info to solve something small and crash hard.