Totally agreed, and it was how I got my foot in the door with web development.
The first tutorial wasn't, Getting started - adding and subtracting numbers in a REPL or doing some basic Hello World nonsense. It was How to build a blog with PHP and MySQL and I came across it when I found out that I didn't have to hand-code all my pages, even in Dreamweaver (at the time).
Once again I wanted to do something more, and came across the concept of frameworks (this was just when RoR was born), and then, the famous Make a blog in 20 minutes trend of tutorials that all frameworks eventually copied. I did CakePHP's, and I learnt about classes and MVC and separating concerns.
My boss summed it up perfectly: "you need to be given something real to be able to learn from it and enjoy it."
He was right, because I'd never have learned how to create an iOS app (and learned Obj-C) if he didn't give me a fortnight to program a design.
The first tutorial wasn't, Getting started - adding and subtracting numbers in a REPL or doing some basic Hello World nonsense. It was How to build a blog with PHP and MySQL and I came across it when I found out that I didn't have to hand-code all my pages, even in Dreamweaver (at the time).
Once again I wanted to do something more, and came across the concept of frameworks (this was just when RoR was born), and then, the famous Make a blog in 20 minutes trend of tutorials that all frameworks eventually copied. I did CakePHP's, and I learnt about classes and MVC and separating concerns.
My boss summed it up perfectly: "you need to be given something real to be able to learn from it and enjoy it."
He was right, because I'd never have learned how to create an iOS app (and learned Obj-C) if he didn't give me a fortnight to program a design.