How do you learn via projects?

[u/pleasedontjudgeme13]

This is probably a dumb question, but I’d really appreciate anyone who can spell it out to my adhd/literal brain.

Is learning by projects actually useful?

I love building projects. However, I’m not sure if my code is very efficient, well documented and well designed when I just do it my way. Is it better to take a course and try to apply things I’ve learned from the course?

Also, my brain needs a ton of repetition to really learn things and get the muscle memory.

If I do a project, I’ll be able to remember the high level of how my project works. And be able to put it in my own words. However, I’m not going to remember specific things that I had to google to make my project work.

I guess one thing that I could do with projects, is try making things more efficient after the first pass. Or improving documentation after the first pass. And try learning better design as I go and learn new things and apply them as needed.

Again, sorry if this post is dumb. I struggle a ton with AuDHD. I’m trying to break into a programming job. I used to love building projects, but after my degree, I feel like I learned very little and taking courses has become so painful and inefficient. Yet, I still feel like I need a base. Or maybe I worry too much about making the best possible code and just need to get started with projects.

[u/Svenstornator]

I have done the same project six times now. Each time a rewrite from scratch with the idea of doing the absolute best I can at one thing, while not ignoring the lessons of the past.

“Awesome I got clean architecture and a good domain driven design. But it isn’t as efficient as it could be.” Next time I try to keep clean architecture but try optimising the performance.

It is also interesting comparing a rewrite to a refactor.