Tutorials make development look easy.
You type what the instructor types. The app compiles. The API returns a perfect JSON. You feel like a senior engineer.
Then I started working on a real project.
As part of my volunteer work for a React/Next.js position in Czechia, I stepped out of the “tutorial sandbox” and into a real codebase.
And I quickly realized that courses didn’t prepare me for the actual job.
Here is what tutorials don’t teach you about real-world frontend development:
1. You spend more time reading code than writing it
In a tutorial, you build everything from scratch. You know every variable.
In a real project, you are dropped into the middle of an existing architecture. My first few days weren’t spent writing shiny new features. They were spent staring at the screen, trying to understand how someone else’s state management worked and why things were structured the way they were.
2. The “Happy Path” is an illusion
Tutorials teach you how the app behaves when everything goes right.
Real projects are about what happens when everything goes wrong. APIs fail. Edge cases pop up. Users do things you never predicted. I had to learn how to handle loading states, errors, and fallback UI – things that tutorials usually skip to save time.
3. Boring tech is often the best tech
When learning, I wanted to use the newest libraries and the most complex solutions.
But real projects have deadlines. Working with a mentor taught me a hard truth: the goal isn’t to write the most clever code. The goal is to write code that works, is easy to maintain, and solves the business problem. Simple beats clever, every time.
Tutorials gave me the syntax.
But real projects are giving me the mindset.
If you are a junior developer stuck in “tutorial hell,” my biggest advice is to get out. Build something real. Break things. Fix bugs. Work with someone else’s code.
It will be painful at first. But it’s the only way you actually learn how to engineer software.
Writer : Azamat Omirtay
— Bhuwan Chettri
Editor, CodeToDeploy
CodeToDeploy Is a Tech-Focused Publication Helping Students, Professionals, And Creators Stay Ahead with AI, Coding, Cloud, Digital Tools, And Career Growth Insights.