Pratham Ponnana asked a great question on my GitHub AMA. He wanted to know how one can read and understand web docs. Since docs are generally huge, he finds it difficult to understand what he should read and what he can skip, where he can start and where to end.
I am sure that many young developers have this same question. This newsletter issue will show you some direction as to how one can read web docs the right way.
Have a problem to solve.
The motive of going through the documentation is often to learn something new. And that's exactly where the problem lies. If you read the docs, you will just read them. You will not understand anything and even forget it all after some time. Until you have a problem in hand, do not read the docs.
So what's the process? Let's suppose one wants to learn React. A good way is to make an Instagram clone. You have a problem in mind now, and you start looking at the individual tasks of the job. When you know what you need to build, you can start looking at the docs. Okay, that's how you do this. That's how you make an API request. That's how you do that. That's how you fetch data and display it on the screen. You can fit the pieces that you read about in your application. You don't just read about them now, but use and apply them to build something.
Watch and learn
You may have come across the YouTube video where I show you how to host a blog in less than 30 minutes. I was new to Gatsby and was using it for the first time in my life. But I had a problem to solve: How to build a blogging site? I knew what the requirements of a blog are, and I could then dive into the task with that knowledge. I kept looking at the docs and figuring out what I needed and what I did not. I found out the pieces that I needed and built the blog successfully.
Going through the docs with a problem in mind also helps one learn how to traverse them well. When you are reading the docs, you traverse them linearly. That does not really help on the job.
Make docs your friend.
Open the documentation only when you need help. Treat it as your second brain and do not even try to download it in your first one. You don't need to give an exam on the docs. So you do not need to learn them by heart. They will always be available for you. All you need to know is how and where to find something.
Go back and forth with the docs. Have an idea of where the individual elements are located. But do remember that this won't happen in a day or even two. I have been through the React docs thousands of times, and it is only now that I know exactly where each concept lies.
Treat the docs as a web of information that you can reference anytime.
Share and Subscribe
I hope I have answered Pratham's question well and cleared this dilemma for most of you at the same time. Share the newsletter issue with your developer friends and family, and subscribe to not miss out on further issues.
You just took away a burden off my shoulders 😀
"Have a problem to solve" is a great approach, luckily this is one I have recently adopted.
Previously, I used to dive into the vast Ocean and end up drowning !
Now people like me can finally move on to reading actual docs rather than w3schools.
Jokes apart, great explanation, as always. Hoping to instill this way of thinking in myself.