Why articles and videos should not be your reference for a technology.

date

Mar 4, 2024

slug

videos

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Published

Intro:

I'm launching this article like a message in a bottle, hoping it sparks some reflection. One year ago, I took on the challenge of ditching YouTube tutorials in favor of documentation. The result? A noticeable transformation in my learning and coding approach.

A developer at Google once told me that true learning doesn't come from merely watching tutorials on the internet. According to him, the key is to experiment and dive into the documentation. Always eager to learn and improve, like many of us, I decided to heed this sage advice.

First Attempt:

Let's face it, beginnings are often tough, and one can feel a bit lost. Reading documentation might seem like a real challenge, but I believe it gets easier with time and practice. However, that's not the main topic of this article.

What struck me was the proliferation of articles I didn't agree with, or ones that simply built partial examples to highlight their points without offering a comprehensive view of the situation.

Sneaky Technique:

I'm a big fan of a YouTuber specializing in React. In one of their videos, they claimed that signals in React were ineffective. "Great, tell me more, my friend!" I thought. The video starts with a presentation of a Web Dev Simplified video on signals. Afterwards, this YouTuber presents code using SolidJS. Small mistake on their part: Web Dev Simplified uses Preact, while they talk about SolidJS. Here's the code they showed, where the signals don't propagate to the children:

I'm sharing the code for those who are curious, but the crux of their argument is that in their example, the title doesn't change because there's no accessor. Therefore, they suggest that React with useState is more effective than signals.

Documentation and Comparison:

Here, I aim to finally clarify my perspective. Sorry for the lengthy journey to get here. Without the habit of consulting documentation, I might have taken that video at face value and stopped there. After watching the video, my approach was to recreate their example in a sandbox and then consult the Preact documentation for comparison. Indeed, their code didn't work as expected. While I might not be deeply familiar with SolidJS to discuss it in detail, I do know React well. When it comes to signals, there isn't just one way to implement them. Below, you can see how to create a perfectly functional signal in a sandbox as evidence.

sandbox ← click

I believe it's crucial to always read the documentation and explore different viewpoints. Others' opinions can provide ideas on how to implement code, but they don't always guarantee the best approach. Relying solely on one source can lead us to incorrect conclusions. That's why it's essential to be curious and verify things for ourselves to truly understand and master a topic, rather than blindly following a tutorial.

In conclusion: A tutorial should merely serve as an introduction to grasp the overview, never more than 10 minutes in video form and 30 minutes in reading. This has become my standard, and I invite you to find yours.