Thread by @bbelderbos

Don't get stuck in tutorial paralysis, the best way to learn #Python and software development is to build real world applications 🧵

You will hit so many issues, you'll have to constantly look things up, Stack Overflow becomes your new best friend and that is ok. It will turn you into a good developer.

Because it's not about memorizing things (even though you still will with increased practice), it's about becoming a good problem solver with a spark of creativity.

Building projects gives you all this and more.

And it's a triple win, because apart from the boost in technical skills, you will end up with cool projects you can show on your resume / portfolio and you'll connect with other developers.

Heck, you might even launch your side gig and learn some good business skills along the way.

Courses and books still have their place, but some of the concepts they teach better sink in when you have related experience.

Preemptively filling your brain with a lot of concepts and theory is just not that effective.

It's far better to reverse the process: start with a clear goal / app idea and just start building it step by step and learn as you go.

We at @pybites call this JIT or "just in time learning". You only look things up as you need them.

Or as @shl says in his book: "You don't learn, then start. You start, then learn"

Let me know if you struggle with this. I definitely did when I started out. I remember sitting there with a Ruby on Rails tutorial for days not getting anywhere.

Then I started to build a major log parsing tool at work and it started to click. The code was ugly at first, but I had to go through this phase.

Make it work first, then prettify it. Premature optimization does not make sense if you don't have the building blocks ready. First care about going from 0 to 1.