Learning Code through courses VS playing with documentation

1

Hi,

I wonder if some people like me prefer to learn coding through examples rather than following already-made courses and then apply practical examples?A bottom-up approach rather than a top-down approach?

For example, I found out that I am more efficient when I know the basic syntax of a programming language and the main principles, and then reading the W3Schools documentation (for example) and then playing with these new learnt syntax with some examples on codepen.io and seeing the results.

I then understand the concepts through the results, and not the other way around (1st concept 2nd practical examples).

At least for coding :slight_smile: (for everything else I’m kind of an intellectual with a top-down approach)

Don’t know whyn its just that I like practical examples in coding and seeing the immediate results, making mistakes and refining my coding skills by testing many many times until I get the desired result.

Anybody has the same feeling or way of learning?

Note: I also follow Free Code Compa and other coding wbsites formal courses at the same time, but sometimes when it gets too abstract, I dig my hands in the dirt and play with tech documentation even if I haven’t learn the basic foundation principles (is it risky?)

2

Absolutely. Nothing is an adequate substitute to getting your hands dirty in some code.

Formal education (in all varieties) is a useful tool for:

  1. proving to other people what you can do
  2. moving concepts from the “unknown unknown” space to the “known unknown” space.