The Web Developer to YouTuber Development Timeline

As a junior developer, it is no surprise that I scour the landscape of Coding YouTube looking for solutions and wisdom for my coding problems.

Sometimes I’m watching videos about why JavaScript is a better choice to learn than C#, and other times I’m watching videos that tell me about JavaScript promises. And I’ve discovered a bit of trend…

It seems that transitioning from a labor intensive job like firefighter to a lucrative and comfortable job in tech is not enough. You also have to transition into being a “Content Creator”.

I take this very specific example from a man named Clint Briley, the owner of Code Commerce. He was actually a firefighter, as I found out when I watched his most recent video. To be honest, I found his video boring and uninformative and I left a comment telling him so (no response). I’ll tell you about it here. He had a loft of graphics and transitions to stock footage, trying hard to emphasize his points.

The problem was that he was all over the place with what he was trying to say. Was this a guide for fledgling developers or was it a tale about how this rough-handed man’s man became a clicky clacker? (that’s onomatopoeia for web developer). His video reminded me a lot of Fireship.io’s videos. Fireship doesn’t show his face, he uses purely text and images but he has a way of speaking that is very soothing. It makes you feel like this complicated topic is very accessible but you can tell he really knows his stuff. The videos also have a very consistent style and they don’t jump around from thing to thing like a hare bouncing to the finish line.

There is no doubt that Fireship is very popular. He has courses and a website, he is definitely one of THE YouTuber’s to emulate but there’s no point in copying someone’s style in a saturated market. You’ll just be like those Louis Vuitton bags you see in bins at market stalls. Fake, an imitation.

So not all YouTube channels come with the same quality of information. Sometimes they are just a mosaic of someone’s ego, lacking in valuable information and without individuality.

There is another video which has come across my radar a lot (I say radar but it’s just the algorithm).

I haven’t watched this video all the way through (and I don’t intend to). I found James’s presentation to be very… smug. He doesn’t seem to have any sense of gratitude for his position, he kind of just wants to show off. I made it, I learned to code, I am amazing. Where are the accolades for the people who helped him along the way? I take umbrage with the phrase “I taught myself to code”, well no you didn’t. You used online resources… made by someone else. Even if they weren’t sitting there in front of you, guiding you through the process, they still helped. You’re barely self taught, if you didn’t sit with editor open and materialise the code through sheer will. Give some grace to those who helped you. “Totally free, self-directed learning” he says… he used freeCodeCamp.com and tutorials from Kevin Powell. I think I was right in saying that he seems smug…

He also only just learned to code in 2021 and is already spitting out tutorials. I’m not saying he would know NOTHING but I think these online tutorials claim something they just can’t deliver. They appear to say they can MAKE you a web developer. It’s written in the subtext, hidden behind what they don’t say. They don’t write {simple} or {basic} or claim somewhere in their description they are a {junior developer}.

I now understand what some in this learning space refer to as “tutorial hell”. Well yes, I would be in hell if I relied solely on one-hour YouTube tutorials. They don’t really give a depth of knowledge or challenge you. Mostly, they don’t even really go beyond the basics. You’re not really learning, it’s just entertainment. A lot of it is positioned like that as well. You’re not here to learn, you’re here to have fun! Let’s chill out, lay back and crack the beers. The content has to be clickable and not click-awayable so they’re not really invested in helping you learn. That’s up to you.

The reality is that the best courses are usually ones that you have to pay for, that aren’t cheap. These are the ones that get results because they employ a methodology that expects you to do something. I think a lot of people have aspirations to become a developer but they don’t get much further than watching Youtube tutorials, which is where all these views come from. And well, from anxious students trying to understand template literals…