Do you prefer tutorials over just reading the documentation?

Question

I truly enjoy going through entire documentation to know as much as possible about the technology I'm going to use.Many people seem to prefer guides and tutorials which are obviously just a small part of the full picture.What about you?

LinuxBender · Accepted Answer

I like well written documentation. Well written documentation will show me all the capabilities of a thing, the inner workings, all the possible variables and options, along with real world examples of configuring, debugging, tuning. If that is missing from the documentation, I go looking for real world implementations, example configurations, learned caveats this will rarely be in documentation, tips and tricks for things you can do that are outside the intended purpose. An example of well written documentation is the Apache HTTPD project [1]. They have all possible configuration directives, even include documentation for modules they did not create and provide defaults along with example configurations for most directives.[1] - https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/

uberman · Answer

I would take a working well written meaningful code example over most tutorials and documentation.
I will absolutely use documentation when I have additional questions as I explore new platforms.
I personally learn much more quickly working with code than reading and I don't really enjoy reading, particularly documentation.

CodeGlitch · Answer

Examples.It shows context, correct usage, and gives the reader a starting point to then dive deeper into the documentation.

Do you prefer tutorials over just reading the documentation?

I truly enjoy going through entire documentation to know as much as possible about the technology I'm going to use.
Many people seem to prefer guides and tutorials which are obviously just a small part of the full picture.
What about you?

Examples.
It shows context, correct usage, and gives the reader a starting point to then dive deeper into the documentation.