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Remember, there are many different ways to learn. Some ways may work better for some people than others. What you should be mindful of is ensuring that, whatever you're doing, whatever code you may be reusing from someone or somewhere else, whatever article or Q/A you are reading, that you understand all the code you are personally writing (or copy/pasting).
StackOverflow is a superb resource given what it is, though copy/pasting solutions without understanding how the solution works, and why it is a solution to the initial problem, will leave you clueless.
You can definitely learn by building something on top of another code base, or modifying said code base. This may not be ideal for some people, and it definitely comes with its own set of cons. You likely won't understand how certain things work. That's bad. It's also likely that much of the code you're using is poorly written for one reason or another.
You want to be careful what you take away from anything. Whether it be an article suggesting one thing or another, a specific solution to a problem, analysis of an open source project, and so on. Question everything. Make a real effort to understand how things really work. Research. A lot. Why does the person do it this way. What if they did it this other way. Why is this tool good. Why isn't it good. Find an article or two talking about one subject, then look up articles about why that subject is a bad idea.
Be curious. Be ambitious. Do your homework. Challenge yourself. Make beautiful things. Understand what poop code is, and then refuse to write it. Make different things, work with different people, work on different code bases, different languages. Keep doing things that make you uncomfortable, and you'll flourish with different experiences that will help you so much as you move forward.
StackOverflow is a superb resource given what it is, though copy/pasting solutions without understanding how the solution works, and why it is a solution to the initial problem, will leave you clueless.
You can definitely learn by building something on top of another code base, or modifying said code base. This may not be ideal for some people, and it definitely comes with its own set of cons. You likely won't understand how certain things work. That's bad. It's also likely that much of the code you're using is poorly written for one reason or another.
You want to be careful what you take away from anything. Whether it be an article suggesting one thing or another, a specific solution to a problem, analysis of an open source project, and so on. Question everything. Make a real effort to understand how things really work. Research. A lot. Why does the person do it this way. What if they did it this other way. Why is this tool good. Why isn't it good. Find an article or two talking about one subject, then look up articles about why that subject is a bad idea.
Be curious. Be ambitious. Do your homework. Challenge yourself. Make beautiful things. Understand what poop code is, and then refuse to write it. Make different things, work with different people, work on different code bases, different languages. Keep doing things that make you uncomfortable, and you'll flourish with different experiences that will help you so much as you move forward.
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