Appreciation post: That 3-day YouTube course that clicked after I failed a personal project

I spent like 6 weeks trying to build a simple to-do list app and kept getting stuck on the same JavaScript loop. Then I found this free 3-day crash course on DOM manipulation, and the guy used a grocery list example that finally made it click for me. The difference between my janky code from Tuesday and my working version on Friday was night and day... I was just missing how events actually trigger changes. Has anyone else had a random tutorial suddenly make a concept stick after struggling for weeks?

2 comments

2 Comments

seanjackson12d ago

Man that grocery list example is actually genius and it's funny you say that because I had almost the exact same thing happen with a CSS grid tutorial. Spent two weeks fighting with flexbox trying to make a simple photo gallery and this guy just showed a basic grid with images of different cats and it all came together in about twenty minutes. Sometimes it's just the example they pick that makes all the difference, like your brain needs to see it in a context that actually makes sense instead of some abstract boilerplate code.

the_kim9d ago

You nailed it with the "context that actually makes sense" part. I was stuck on a data sorting thing forever until someone showed it using a list of their favorite movies ranked by year instead of random numbers. My brain just clicked seeing the data actually mean something real.