[deleted]
Ask HN: Why do tutorial writers combine 10 technologies when 1 or 2 would do?
71–80 of 80 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do tutorial writers combine 10 technologies when 1 or 2 would do?
#72Most tutorial writers are terrible at what they are trying to teach. They may have a vague grasp of a concept, but that's about as far as it goes. If they were more capable they wouldn't be writing tutorials. There are of course exceptions to this, but it covers at least 90% of the people who create courses for sites like Udemy. Comes back to the old saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."
Thanks for mentioning exceptions. I've found that Stephen Grider's courses on Udemy are outstanding. He's clearly found his calling in life. (I don't know him personally - have just taken many of his classes).
I was recommended Stephen from a colleague and now I've also enjoyed Stephen Grider's courses. I also really like them and his style! So far I've only done Vue JS essentials and Complete React Native. If I could be selfish for a moment I wish he would do at least one more Vue course with some more advanced concepts and tackling managing a large project with Vue.
Re: Ask HN: Why do tutorial writers combine 10 technologies when 1 or 2 would do?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting to watch people make inferences about the capacity of individuals to develop software based on the utterances of a 19th century Irish playwright. My theory is that exposition is hard. Most people are shit at teaching.
These HN comments are pretty disheartening. What a dreary bunch. To summarize them, people write free tutorials because they cannot do (they're bad developers), because they reap some sort of financial gain, or because they actually want to ruin an HNer's day who demanded amazing, free content. I encourage all of you to try and write a tutorial. You'll see that it's simply hard. You have to decide on what level of sk…
It's like trying on an item of clothing and concluding that the manufacturer is rubbish at making clothes because they don't fit you. A such uncharitably odd conclusion to come to.
Re: Ask HN: Why do tutorial writers combine 10 technologies when 1 or 2 would do?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most tutorial writers are terrible Not just writers, most tutorials are objectively terrible. Trying to find a reasonable example on how to get something moderately complex off the ground is a humbling reminder of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The probability of an internet resource being highly ranked and visible has a near-linear correlation with the resource's unsuitability. In fact, when it comes to technology, it…
> encouraging to use SSL_NO_VERIFY flag because passing CA path is too difficult. And if they did spend extra time on that people would complain they are trying to teach two technologies at once. Also that’s something everyone unless it is part of their day job has to look up a tutorial on how to do it. Just a passing “this is for ease of use, don’t do it in production and consult a manual” would suffice.
In the back of my mind I always hope that a new technology I'm using will fail in a spectacular, obvious fashion as soon as I use it wrongly, because that means that a great number of resources will soon appear to cover all the gotchas.
It's the ones where spotting and debugging the source of the problem depends on fine-grained conceptual understanding, that leads to documentation that gives you a metaphorical blank stare and shrug.
Re: Ask HN: Why do tutorial writers combine 10 technologies when 1 or 2 would do?
#75People make tutorials for economic reasons, those reasons are not always 100% aligned with the need to help you learn. Making the tutorial increases their profile, leading to more profitable opportunities elsewhere (because making the tutorial is not as financially remunerative as actually being employed/consulting somewhere). Furthermore if you make a tutorial as an advertisement for your skills you want to make it…
I don't think I'm the exception but I don't write tutorials for money or fame. My name isn't even on them directly. The only way to see I made them is to click the GitHub link which I doubt one out of 20 people click.
I think it's just fun to teach. The only other motivation I can think of is it's also frustrating to see people follow bad tutorials full of bad practices. The only way to combat that is to make my own.
Re: Ask HN: Why do tutorial writers combine 10 technologies when 1 or 2 would do?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does it really work this way? I suspect that tutorial writer who expect basic tutorial to be treated as major showcase is deluding himself. No employer is impressed by basic tutorial on something nor by express being mentioned in it in basic setup.
But the whole complaint of the Ask is the tutorials aren't basic, and nobody is writing the basic tutorials because it doesn't benefit them. It benefits them to throw a bunch of stuff in there to show they follow best practices (like putting a complete test suite into your tutorial). Throwing a bunch of stuff in the mix and showing basic competence also causes people to think they have more than basic competence, bec…
I think I know which article you mean, but I really don't think it works that way - on either end. Companies just don't care about your writing. And had they cared about documentation, they would reward writing documentation and people would be more likely to write that. I mentioned express in tutorial about graphql does not seem to me proof of anything much less about such person being comfortable with express. It usually shows that you know that it exists, you can do basic coding and that is pretty much it.
People who write tutorials gain very little from it. The structure is more often determined by mimicking other tutorials, writing for himself (e.g. people exactly like me because that is easiest) and writing in a way that is easy and quick to write. Or even more directly, writing literally for yourself so that next time you are wiring the same thing, step by step is available. That is not laziness, before somebody throws it, they are already doing more then those who don't write at all.
It is really often written while that person is learning new technology where writing helps you to learn and allows you to keep log. Writing in depth is harder and takes way more time then people who never tried assume.
Re: Ask HN: Why do tutorial writers combine 10 technologies when 1 or 2 would do?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the whole complaint of the Ask is the tutorials aren't basic, and nobody is writing the basic tutorials because it doesn't benefit them. It benefits them to throw a bunch of stuff in there to show they follow best practices (like putting a complete test suite into your tutorial). Throwing a bunch of stuff in the mix and showing basic competence also causes people to think they have more than basic competence, bec…
I think I know which article you mean, but I really don't think it works that way - on either end. Companies just don't care about your writing. And had they cared about documentation, they would reward writing documentation and people would be more likely to write that. I mentioned express in tutorial about graphql does not seem to me proof of anything much less about such person being comfortable with express. It u…
It might not work that way, I'm just going on things I was told back when I was writing (which was before the landscape changed and you could actually sell technical articles and get paid money for them [so different circumstances but similar incentives I believe], I don't know where you get that anymore [maybe some places give you money based on traction after publication]), my own reasons for writing, and the aforementioned article.
In the case of my own writing it was because I was a very XML guy and I wanted to give some impression of "he's not just an XML guy" if the wind ever changed and I needed to change with it. They have, as far as I know, been useful two or three times in the context of employment, but not exceptionally useful, and one of those times was impressing the social media engaged chief at the worst job I ever had in my life who thought doing the articles and so forth was a marker of senior engineer behavior.
And I'm not saying it will have the actual effect described every time or even frequently, but I do think that a significant number of people believe or hope it will.
Re: Ask HN: Why do tutorial writers combine 10 technologies when 1 or 2 would do?
#78It's much the same on sites like Quora where a question that is answerable in a single line gets half a dozen answers each of which drags in pages of irrelevant material and in some cases actually fail to address the question at all.
Re: Ask HN: Why do tutorial writers combine 10 technologies when 1 or 2 would do?
#79Most tutorial writers are not aware of how to create educational materials. They don't think deeply about the learning objectives (what the reader should be able to do or understand at the end), don't understand how to provide concise working examples, how to "scaffold" learning, and so on. It's often just a dump of the things they learned and maybe how they learned it, but that doesn't mean it'll work for anyone els…
Teaching is a skill and like any other skill, it needs practice. I have immense respect for teachers who have dedicated their lives to perfecting their craft.
But also like learning any skill correctly, one needs knowledge. Feedback during the practice helps a lot to make sure what's being practiced is correct.
Teaching, instructional design, curriculum development, etc., these are knowledge-based skills just like programming, but without the automatic corrective feedback that a compiler or automated test gives you.
Re: Ask HN: Why do tutorial writers combine 10 technologies when 1 or 2 would do?
#80Most tutorial writers are not aware of how to create educational materials. They don't think deeply about the learning objectives (what the reader should be able to do or understand at the end), don't understand how to provide concise working examples, how to "scaffold" learning, and so on. It's often just a dump of the things they learned and maybe how they learned it, but that doesn't mean it'll work for anyone els…
It is called "the experts blind spot"
Yes, also known as the "Curse of Expertise" or the "Curse of Knowledge", is a big part of it, but being aware of it is just the start. Understanding how to break down the skill into the pieces that the learner can absorb is one of the hardest things to do.