Why you should ditch tutorials for real problems – How-To Geek

So you just finished yet another tutorial video. Then, when you try to write some code on your own, you don’t know where to even start. The fear of the blank code editor haunts you. If that’s you, it’s time you stopped binging tutorials and solved a real-life problem with code.
Most tutorials are designed to introduce you to something new, whether it’s a programming language, a framework, or a particular feature. Some tutorials are even project-based, guiding you through building a small app, for example, an expense tracker, from start to finish. At first glance, this feels like real learning. You’re writing code, following along, and everything is working smoothly.
But here’s where the catch lies. Project tutorials usually guide you step-by-step. They tell you exactly what to type and when to type it. There’s little room for decisions, mistakes, or experimentation. You don’t learn how to handle the inevitable “it doesn’t work on my machine” moment.
This is why tutorials tend to cover only the general idea of how something works. They show you the happy path where nothing goes wrong. Real programming doesn’t look like that. Real problems involve messy data, unexpected bugs, and incomplete instructions. When you’re working on an actual problem, you’re forced to think, to try different approaches, and to understand why something works, not just how to follow the steps.
A big drawback of tutorials is that they usually don’t teach you why certain decisions are made or how to make good decisions in the first place. Their main goal is to get you from point A to point B as quickly and simply as possible. To keep things short and beginner-friendly, tutorial authors often skip important details such as code organization, naming conventions, testing, error handling, and performance considerations.
This isn’t because the authors don’t know these things. It’s because explaining best practices takes time. It also adds complexity, which can make a tutorial intimidating. So instead, you’re shown the simplest version of a solution. While that might help you understand the idea, it can also lead you to form bad habits without realizing it.
For example, I was working on a customer relationship management (CRM) project. When I looked at tutorials, they weren’t following the conventions usually followed by experienced developers. No clean architecture, no SOLID principles. Hundreds of lines of code in a single file. Had I followed such a tutorial, I would’ve picked up those same habits, which would hurt me in the long term.
When you start working on real problems, best practices aren’t just “nice to have.” They help keep your code understandable, scalable, and less prone to bugs.
Technology moves fast. A tutorial that was perfectly accurate a year ago might now be missing key steps or using methods that are no longer recommended.
For beginners, this can be confusing. You may follow a tutorial exactly as written, only to run into errors because a function has been renamed, or a package is no longer available. Suddenly, you’re stuck, not because you did anything wrong, but because the tutorial simply hasn’t kept up with the current state of the tool you’re using.
This becomes a hidden trap: you learn how to make something work according to old information. Then, when you encounter real problems in a modern environment, your knowledge doesn’t quite fit.
Working on real problems pushes you to look at current documentation, community discussions, and recent examples. You learn how to adapt to changes, which is a valuable skill to become a better programmer.
At some point, every programmer discovers that you learn the most when you step away from tutorials and start building something on your own. When you face a real problem, you’re forced to think critically. You search, test, break things, fix them, and repeat. It may feel slow or frustrating at first, but that’s exactly where growth happens.
Solving real problems teaches you how to debug, how to ask better questions, and how to research effectively. You don’t need to jump straight into building something huge. Even small projects, like writing automation scripts, can push you to think independently. Each time you make a decision, encounter a roadblock, or try a new approach, you’re training your problem-solving muscles.
I once did an experiment. I wanted to learn PHP. Instead of following a single tutorial, I downloaded a hospital management project from GitHub and immersed myself in it. It’s true that I wasn’t new to programming. But I knew nothing about PHP. After a few weeks of tweaking it, I got the basics. But there’s the important lesson. With my new knowledge, I didn’t just learn how to write PHP code. I was able to implement new features with it. In other words, I was solving real problems.
The only reason I was able to do it was because I decided to work on a real project from the beginning, despite it being large and complex, and my lack of knowledge. Had I taken the conventional route of watching another 8-hour tutorial, I wouldn’t have learned so many things so fast.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t consume programming tutorials at all. They give you the basics to start. But real learning happens when you tackle a real project all by yourself, without hand-holding or code-along sessions. If you’re looking for some project ideas, you could make a simple quiz app or even your first GUI app.
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