CodingTips #ProgrammingEducation #PythonDocs #LearnFromTheSource
Have you ever looked at your code and thought, "Why does this suck so much?" 🤔 Well, I recently had that realization and I figured out the reason behind it. Here’s the scoop:
When it comes to programming, there are no shortcuts to mastery. Learning from videos or website tutorials might seem convenient, but it often leaves gaps in your knowledge that can result in subpar code. I decided to take a different approach and went straight to the source – the documentation provided by the programming languages themselves.
Here are some valuable resources I found:
- Dive into the Python docs: https://docs.python.org/3/download.html
- Explore the Go programming language: https://go.dev/doc/
- Check out the comprehensive JavaScript documentation: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript
- Brush up on C/C++ with resources from Microsoft: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/c-language/?view=msvc-170
- Dive deep into Computer Science fundamentals on GitHub: https://github.com/ossu/computer-science
By delving into the nitty-gritty of programming languages through official documentation, you gain a solid understanding of the concepts, syntax, and best practices. This will not only improve the quality of your code but also enhance your problem-solving skills.
So next time you feel frustrated with your code, consider taking the time to read through the documentation provided by the language itself. It may seem daunting at first, but I guarantee it’ll elevate your coding game to the next level! 💻🚀
What are your thoughts on learning from official documentation? Share your experiences and let’s help each other level up our coding skills! 👩💻👨💻 #CodeBetter #DocumentationIsKey
TL;DR read official documentation kids.
There were times when we learned from books…
TL;DR: RTFM
Docs can be confusing until you have a base knowledge, tutorial videos can help get you to a place where the docs are not so exhausting to read.
What worked for me was learning what I needed to learn and move the fuck on. I got a job now, I do this on the job all the time. No need to read stuff you probably won’t use, learn to focus on the problem and zeroing on the solution with research.
Wtf. Microsoft docs for C++? ARE YOU MAD?
[https://cplusplus.com/](https://cplusplus.com/)
[https://en.cppreference.com/w/](https://en.cppreference.com/w/)
These are the Tomes. Bloody goober…
The best option I have found that works for me is reading those big rediculously large books, reading the dev docs and some of the smaller books. It has allowed me gain actual mastery of the languages. There is just something nice knowing the entire standard library and all functions of a programming language along with the ability to implement solutions without looking at the docs, having to search how to do x, etc.
The videos and tutorials are great for specific things, but they do not and cannot go into enough depth without being very long to get you up and going. But if you want mastery then you have to read the docs and books as they go into the necessary details to actually make that happen. The fun begins when you are good enough to start getting into the internals of the language, building your own debuggers, performance analyziers, auto boilerplate creation tools, and other automated systems that nobody else has.
Putting in that time is so worth it, blows people away on interviews when you really know their entire stack and not just a high level overview of popular components of it. As when things start to break down or need to be scaled, you need to know the language to fix the problems that are coming up.
try to read it, doesn’t understand one bit. really need to understand the basic of programming first, then read the documentation.
There are basically two kinds of formal language docs: user guides and reference manuals.
To get started, user guides and happy path tutorials help a lot.
To get good, read as much good code as you can lay hands on. Open source is good for that. Use the reference manuals to explain what you see in the code you read. And write code. ( Don’t forget, debugging is harder than coding, so don’t use all your cleverness writing the code or you’ll never be able to debug it.)
I think that documents and very useful but if you dont have previously knowledge in programming are useless, and this previous knowledge can be purchased with videos or tutorials
> if i would actually just read all the documentation python provided instead of learning from half-assed tutorials
I wasn’t able to read (understand) documentation until I had learned enough.
> No matter how hard the documentation is always worth combing through.
After you already have x amount of knowledge with the language. Someone reading documentation who has never coded will do worse than someone who watched one of the videos you’re talking about that has never coded.
no the reason my code sucks is because I am tired asf and I’ve been stuck in the same problem for bagillion hours without realizing that it’s probabaly a syntax problem
Yeah. That’s why I don’t agree with people who say that you should, “just code.” That’s great advice if you’re a beginner and are stuck in tutorial hell or if you’re advanced enough, but if you’re intermediate, I think you should be reading books and documentation. Books/documentation can fill a lot of knowledge gaps you might not even be aware are there.
ITT: no your way is wrong, my way is better.
Learn how you learn best, try a bunch of stuff and see what works for you. I’ve known plenty of competent devs who learn by reading docs and find other people’s code incomprehensible, and vice versa.
Reading documentation doesn’t teach you to write effective, clean, or scalable code. I’d you belong that you are in correct.
I do prefer the official documentation of shitty tutorial websites, I agree with you on that.
To write good clean code, however, you will need to read or learn additionally outside the documentation. For example, Effective Python/Java are good books that will teach you skills and practices not covered anywhere in the official documentation.
A person cannot learn quality programming on the official docs alone. The docs are there to teach you how everything works with the most basic examples. They don’t always teach when different technologies or libraries are appropriate, and they don’t even talk about things like design patterns or best practices.
I blindly copy paste from Claude and have 5 functional projects in one week. I also have two babies, family and a full time career with no time to read docs. Quit gatekeeping.