What are the benefits and drawback of documentation vs tutorials vs video tutorials

Question

Which types of learning resources do you find the most helpful, for which kinds of learning and/or perhaps at specific times?

Some examples of types of learning you could consider:

• When starting to integrate a new SDK inside an existing codebase
• When learning a new framework without having to integrate legacy code
• When digging deeper into an already-used SDK that you may not know very well yet

For example - (video) tutorials are usually very easy to follow and tells a story from beginning to end to get results, but will nearly always assume starting from scratch or a previous tutorial. Therefore such a resource is useful for quick learning if you don't have legacy code around, but less so if you have to search for the best-fit to the code you already have.

SDK Documentation on the other hand is well-structured but does not tell a story. It is more difficult to get to a specific larger result with documentation alone, but it is a better fit when you do have legacy code around and are searching for perhaps non-obvious ways of employing the SDK or library.

Are there other forms of resources that you find useful, such as interactive training?

Answer 1

This is highly subjective based on the person.

I'm an intuitive learner, I have to stick my hands into something and wiggle them about, get cut and bit to learn. So I go straight to the documentation to find the knobs and wheelies I can turn. But for many, this method is as good as tea leaves.

I think based on the way education systems tend to teach people (at least the one I'm familiar with, and I think many follow similarly) it is more common for people to have a learning style suited to tutorials. For many however these simply are not effective.

Some people learn very well from visual such as in a video tutorial, while many learn better from reading tutorials.

I'm not sure you're goal here, but I guess my point is:

• If you must generate training, use all 3.
• If you are looking for a technique to learn, use the one which you find works best for you.

Answer 2

There are various theories about how people learn. On the other hand, most programmers have some things in common: We generally don't have much time, and we are good at reading.

Nothing makes me more mad than trying to find information about a framework/sdk/library to see if it will have any use for me in a 2 hour long video.

Here is a common strategy:

1. A basic overview on what it does(article, video)
2. Comparison with similar stuff(article)
3. Detailed API documentation(articles)
4. Beginner tutorials(articles, video)
5. Cookbooks(articles, video)

My advice, go with articles/documentation, and add some videos/screencasts when you have more time.

Answer 3

It will depend!

The right answer will really depend on type of technology/framework that you are trying to promote or learn.

For example, a series of blog posts about new emerging framework/technology might be interesting for some developers, while others may enjoy watching tutorial videos and/or webcasts.

Thus, it is really subjective question and it is hard to say what will work and what not. Because, you are dealing with human preferences on over another. I guess polling of this question may provide you a better result.

However, taking into account the effort to learn, I would rate it as "documentation < tutorial < video tutorial".

Answer 4

None of those enumerated. The best source of learning is represented by books. They are more detailed than a tutorial pointing out details and are not so blunt in expressing ideas like documentation.

Answer 5

I think that all tree are important, but, to me, you have to take them in the right order. I've learned iOS Dev by myself. So my experience leads me to tell you to go for the easiest first and then get deeper into it.

So I have started with video tutorials, then some tutorials and finally books.

Because learning new stuff is hard to add to your current work load, you have to pay attention to your motivation. So, start with a TV-like approach and when you're at ease with new concepts and terms, dig into the real references.