Comment by culopatin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by culopatin | Hacker News Reader

As a noob, I feel this.

The weird thing is that I am very well aware that tutorials only feel good because I see progress, but that progress is empty. I am aware that confronting a personal project really settles that knowledge in, but I still postpone personal projects whenever I think “I don’t really understand what this means, maybe I should just finish that online course and I’ll be ready”.

Also fighting perfection over progress is tough. “This is not the best way of doing it” is constantly in my head when trying to do thing, which is mental space that could be used towards figuring out the next step.

But I finally started, as stupid and useless as it may sound, I’m just making a counter in Java that stores that in a MySQL database.

Why? Idk, I am learning how to connect my program to a DB, the quirks to learn from that, and then I plan on doing this from a browser. I also plan on trying SQLite because MySQL is overkill, and so just by doing this simple thing I learn a bunch of things going down the rabbit hole.

Does anyone need an app with a button that just adds a number to a row? No, but the different aspects of getting that to run with no errors are what’s important to me.

You may be a self-described noob at whatever you're learning, but it's clear from your outlook that you've had substantial work or life experience to understand complexity as a general phenomenon (i.e. expecting unexpected errors, requiring depth of learning in yourself).

Incremental custom projects is a good way to learn -- not everything has to be "useful for others", especially where learning and practice is concerned.

> Fighting perfection over progress is tough.

I agree. The struggle is real when trying to learn the "right" way to do something. However, progress can still happen (even if it is in the "wrong" direction). I'm okay scrapping a feature or even an entire project when trying something new. I've learned how not to do something and, more importantly, the reason behind that.

Love it, I think that’s a great approach. Build a bunch of tiny “stupid” things of increasing complexity and before long you’ll step back and realize how much you’ve improved. I trying to instill this in folks as I teach React - rather than building some portfolio masterpiece out the gate, do a bunch of little fun things to build skills and confidence.

The trouble with any of this stuff is that no course/book/tutorial can prepare you for every eventuality, and sooner or later you’re going to want to do a thing that nobody explicitly taught you, with a combination of tools that differs from any tutorial you can find. I think building up skills in the way you’re doing it is great preparation for that eventuality.

I find the most important thing when learning anything new is a "safe harbor" to explore from. That's why "Hello world!" is so fundamental. And that's why a counter stored into a database is one of the biggest steps you can make - you've wedged the door open and it can't possibly fall shut again. Everything else is incremental from there. And if something doesn't work, you know you can just go a step back and reassess, without starting from zero. Writing code is beautiful like that.

I wish you many productive struggles and subsequent successes in your journey!

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