My friend's kid said they learned to code by just building stuff, no tutorials. It made me question the whole 'start with the basics' advice. | Coding For Beginners - Pinecone Attack
That kid probably had a specific thing they wanted to make. The motivation to see it work beats any tutorial. Basics make sense for some, but diving straight in and googling the hard parts works for others. It's about what keeps you from quitting.
Oh man, that's so true. My first "project" was a mess of copied code I barely understood because I just wanted a website that would change colors when you clicked a button. I definitely learned more from that disaster than any "hello world" tutorial. The sheer panic of trying to fix your broken thing forces you to actually learn what the pieces do. It's not pretty, but it sticks.