So when I start off learning something, I want to have a perfect knowledge of everything right away. I know that’s not realistic, but here we are. When I have a question about a topic, I generally just do a Google search and find the nearest Stack Overflow article that seems relevant and see what they did to solve my issue. Recently though, I’ve been taking more time to sit down and actually read documentation on specific modules, concepts, technologies, etc and it’s been very helpful. I’ll give some explanation as to why I recommend you read documentation.

Documentation gives you the most in-depth and up-to-date information as to what you’re researching. I always check the date on any articles that aren’t documentation because you never know how old they are and if they’re still relevant. Other types of articles may do a good job at addressing one aspect of what you’re looking for, but if you read the documentation, you’ll get to see other things you might not have realized were options.

You will learn more comprehensively than exclusively reading articles or forum posts. A blog post may not cover every possibility and option available to you for a module, but the documentation will.

You’ll get better at reading and understanding how to read documentation. And with that, get a better understanding of how whatever you’re learning about works. I used to steer clear of reading a lot of documentation because I thought it was difficult to understand. And sometimes it kind of is. However, I’d recommend sticking with it.

-Rachel