A few years ago, one of my hopes was to pay for a subscription on FrontendMasters, a course platform with tons upon tons of video courses from experienced engineers (including ThePrimeagen himself). As of writing, the monthly price for access to these courses comes out to $39 USD plus tax (although this could be relieved temporarily for students with the GitHub Student Pack).

Not to hate on platforms like this, but I would never pay for that. Not when I can just read the docs.

“Oh, but Gray, some people learn better from videos!” Then pay for it if you like. I won’t judge… okay, maybe I will. Sure, some video courses are far cheaper than what FrontendMasters offers, and some are even free! In those cases, I see no problem with using it. In fact, I might encourage you too, because some topics may be best learned from hearing someone talk it out. That being said, reading documentation is going to be something you have to get used to one way or another in the world of software. Writing docs will always come before producing a video series breaking down how to use the framework.

Now, I could come off as a hypocrite, mainly due to the fact my first exposure to programming was a Udemy course on developing Minecraft plugins with Java and Spigot, which I will say is a seriously good course. And if you bought that to learn Minecraft plugins, more power to you - the Spigot API is a strange one - and many things you’ll find online for free get outdated. It’s just the reality of certain programming niches like that.

But if I wanted to learn Go, Next.js, Svelte, or C (because I hate myself), reading docs or just general writings on them just makes more sense in my opinion. Why, do you ask? Let me explain…

If the docs are readable, the docs are better

Video courses are not the end of the world - many make a living off of them - but as someone that knows many people trying to learn to code don’t always have access to good enough funds for this stuff, an approach to use only free resources should always be clear and easy to find. That’s why the title here is so important: Learn to read the docs.

Might as well get used to it - no matter if you get employed with your knowledge in software, you’ll often stumble across a package or tool that has little to no good video explanations on it. Sure, the docs might be trash too, but they should be the first thing you check.

Docs (or some other written resource on a tool in software) are meant to be fun or engaging - unless, of course, whoever wrote them had the time to make it one of those things. Vercel has a fantastic (and free) writing on learning Next.js by building a financial dashboard app complete with a login page, authentication, and such, costing you nothing except your time. Vue.js and Svelte both have great tutorials on their websites that give you a little web-based code editor to go from basics to advanced knowledge of the frameworks - all without you spending a thing. Go has the Go by Example website and it’s own playground with a walkthrough included on the language, without a single paywall in sight. And, (sighs) if you must learn C, I can vouch for Boot.dev’s course on Memory Management with C, which, while focused more on memory management rather than actual C mastery, teaches the core concepts of the language pretty darn well.

Videos aren’t the problem though

Let me clarify - it’s not video courses I have a problem with. It’s specifically any course that charges an excess amount for (at least without any giant discounts, which is why I picked up that Spigot course for $20) and no real justification behind why I’d watch videos rather than read free resources.

That being said, I would encourage anyone getting into programming to learn to read the docs, at least sometimes, because you’ll eventually run into needing to do it. Everyone learns their own way, but that doesn’t mean you have to limit yourself to one format of learning. At least consider it.

And in any case, developers write docs for a reason - it’s literally a write up from the minds behind the tool, giving you a free and easy to access way to learn how to use what they made. When you put it like that, maybe giving it a shot is worth reaching for first, every time. Not all docs are created equal of course, so some will be far better than others, but it’s worth a try.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish React’s Tic Tac Toe tutorial.