The Comfortable Cage of the Tutorial Developer
There is a developer who never ships.
He is not lazy. He is not stupid. He is not unmotivated. He is well-trained. He has completed 47 tutorials. He has cloned Twitter. He has built three to-do apps.
He has followed along with the Next.js crash course twice.
And yet when someone says, “Build something from scratch,” he freezes.
The tutorials did not fail him.
He never left them.
This was me four years ago when I first started in software development. I could build almost anything if you took care of the design and architecture.
However, when I sought to build my own projects, I kept running into the same issues.
No matter how many tutorials and courses I went through, I felt it couldn’t replace a computer science education.
But of course, I was wrong about that too.
The Comfortable Cage
The modern internet made learning to code easier than at any point in history.
You have YouTube. You have documentation. You have step-by-step courses. You have copied and pasted repositories.
You can go from zero to deploying a full-stack app in a weekend.
So why are so many developers stuck at “junior forever”?
Because tutorials train replication, they do not train decision-making.
A Tutorial Developer learns by copying.
Measures progress by completion.
Avoids ambiguity.
Feels productive without building anything original.
You do not face the blank screen.
You do not decide the folder structure.
You do not wrestle with naming.
You do not argue with your own architecture.
The instructor already did that for you.
You follow.
You do not decide.
And even for myself, I found that when I would make it through a turotial I’d run into a bug that they didn’t cover, which forced me to really make sure I knew what I was coding.
Nevertheless, I’d never stared at a blank page or even known I had to decide my folder structure.
Why Tutorials Feel So Good
You should understand this before you criticize it.
Tutorials feel amazing for three reasons.
First, low friction.
There is no uncertainty. You type what they type.
Second, immediate reward.
The app works in the end. You see results.
Third, borrowed clarity.
Someone else already thought through the hard parts.
You skip confusion.
You skip failure.
You skip ownership.
And here is the paradox:
The friction you avoid is the skill you need.
The Hidden Cost
When you stay in tutorial mode too long, something subtle happens.
You become dependent on guidance. You hesitate before building. You search before thinking. You Google before debugging. You doubt your instincts.
You tell yourself you are still learning.
But learning without decision-making builds shallow roots.
This matters if you want real leverage. You are not trying to become a copy machine. You are trying to become someone who builds.
That shift requires architectural thinking.
No tutorial can give you ownership.
Ownership comes from deciding.
The First Time You Build Alone
There is a moment every developer remembers.
You open the editor.
There is no instructor.
There is no roadmap.
There is only an idea.
You feel exposed.
Where do you start?
What stack?
How do you structure the database?
What belongs in the API?
What belongs in the client?
This is the moment the Tutorial Developer begins to die.
Because you are forced to think.
You will write ugly code.
You will refactor.
You will delete half of it.
You will learn more in two weeks than in six months of guided builds.
Not because the material is harder.
Because the responsibility is yours.
The first time I built something I designed and architected, I had a clearer sense of the task ahead. I wanted to build something supremely beautiful yet functional.
Something where people who think like me about creativity and freedom from the 9-5 can come together and really make some change in the world.
That is what I do this for.
You.
The Music Bridge
You can watch production breakdowns for years.
You can study plugins. You can copy chord progressions. You can recreate drum patterns. Or you can write 50 bad songs.
Production is fun.
Arrangement is discipline.
Muting tracks teaches you more than adding plugins. At some point, you stop asking, “How did they make this?” And you start asking, “What does this song need?”
That is authorship.
Whenever I feel lost in the studio, I like to ask myself, “What do I want to say?”
Fundamentally, to be creative and to share your gift, you must look inward. You must think for yourself and not because the tutorial told you so.
Same in code.
The Literature Bridge
Reading about writing feels productive.
You buy craft books. You highlight passages. You study structure. Then you sit down to write and feel lost.
Because structure is theory.
Voice is earned.
You only develop your voice by finishing drafts.
Deleting paragraphs.
Rewriting scenes.
Cutting what you love.
The Tutorial Writer reads.
The Builder Writer edits.
Execution exposes you.
That exposure builds you.
A year and a half ago, I started on my writing journey in its current incarnation.
Hitting publish so many times, and looking back on what I have written, I’ve improved so much. When I read something like an old short story, I see things I wouldn’t necessarily do now. I judge the work differently.
All because I decided to start publishing online.
What Companies Actually Pay For
No company hires for tutorial completion.
They hire:
People who debug without panicking.
People who make tradeoffs.
People who refactor messy systems.
People who can sit in ambiguity without collapsing.
When you ship something imperfect and improve it over time, you build confidence.
When you rely on step-by-step instructions, you build dependency.
One builds income.
The other builds comfort.
You have to decide which you want.
The Death Ritual
Suppose you feel attacked, good. That means you care.
Here is how you move forward.
Stop following full builds from start to finish. Instead, try building it yourself first. Only look up specifics when you are stuck. Build something slightly beyond your comfort zone.
Not impossible.
Not trivial.
Uncomfortable.
Ship before you feel ready.
Refactor ugly code instead of abandoning it.
Finish projects even when they embarrass you.
The goal is not perfection.
The goal is independence.
The Paradox of Leaving Tutorials
Here is the truth.
Tutorials accelerate beginnings.
Struggle builds professionals.
The more you leave tutorials behind, the faster you grow. Because you start seeing patterns instead of steps, you understand systems instead of instructions.
You move from consumer to creator.
And if you are serious about building leverage, about owning your domain, your email list, your backend, your creative output, you cannot stay in guided mode forever.
At some point, the training wheels come off.
You wobble.
You fall.
You rebuild.
And something changes.
You stop asking, “What should I type next?”
You start asking, “What am I trying to build?”
That question changes everything.
The Tutorial Developer has to die. The Builder has to take responsibility. Open the blank file.
Decide.
Ship.
Repeat.
As a writer, this hit close to home. I can read about structure and technique for hours and convince myself I’m improving, but none of that replaces actually finishing something and living with it. I’m going to spend less time studying and more time publishing, even when it’s uncomfortable. More drafts. More decisions. More ownership. Thank you Idris Elijah for the reminder that growth doesn’t come from understanding the theory. It comes from doing the work! Have a great weekend!
This felt less like tech advice and more like a creative mirror. It’s easy to watch process videos and feel inspired. It’s harder to stare at a blank canvas and decide what belongs there. I’m going to lean into that discomfort instead of avoiding it. Fewer references. More original attempts. Even if they’re messy. Especially if they’re messy. This was a very well written newsletter Idris Elijah so thank you and Happy Friday to you!