Learning something new can be daunting, especially if you’re unfamiliar with what you’re learning. Where do I start? How much should I learn? Which tutorial is the best? Personally, I think these questions are very easy to answer. They can be overwhelming, but once thought through, it is very easy to get started.
Where Should I Start?
This question is vey overthought. Start at the beginning! But, what’s the beginning? The beginning is where, ummm….. yeah good point. Maybe this question is kind of hard. There’s no easy answer on where to start learning something. Should I learn scales or learn a song first on the guitar? Should I learn to bat first or pitch first in baseball? Really, the choice is up to you. And the best choice is the one you decide on. Why? Because you’ll learn eventually everything anyways!
Seriously, don’t overthink this. Just start. Doesn’t matter if this is the best tutorial, or the highest rated tutorial, you will learn everything eventually! I’ve noticed this in my own learning recently. I’m learning C# and ASP.NET for my senior project. Choosing where to start learning was the hardest part! I started with one tutorial, and switched which tutorial I was using probably 3 or 4 times at this point! I finally had to tell myself to start and not stop on this tutorial, no matter if I thought it was the best tutorial. And guess what? I’m now 3 hours into a 4 hour tutorial and know my way around ASP.NET well enough to start coding the beginnings of my project. Seriously, just start somewhere.
What is the Best Resource?
The best resource to learn something new? It’s the one you use! Seriously! After changing tutorials 3 or 4 times, I realized I was learning the same ASP.NET concepts over and over. “Here is how you route an HTTP GET request” and “here is how you return a JSON result”. Honestly, the only difference in these tutorials is their preference for how their code looks.
Just choose one and get to it. One tutorial may go into a lot more depth than another, but in the end it doesn’t matter at all. If I watch a 4 hour course, how much of it and I going to retain? Maybe 20 minutes of it. There is plenty of time in the future to learn what you need to. Learn what you can now and start coding, everything else will come as you go.
Good luck coding!