Reference Review: Level Up Tutorials

Developers of all stripes require good sources of knowledge in order to hone their craft. In the past, this took on the form of books. Books are certainly still relevant today, but in the age of the internet, the options for sources of knowledge have significantly expanded. Nowadays, internet videos are a very viable source.

Level Up Tutorials (or Level Up Tuts, if you're feeling slangy) is a channel on YouTube hosted by Scott Tolinski (and occasionally Ben Schaaf, though I have not personally used any of those videos at this time), providing short instructional videos on a variety of development-related subjects. Back in 2016, when I was picking up MeteorJS, this was introduced to me. Over the years that followed, Level Up Tuts has become my go-to source for other subjects - ReactJS, WordPress, CSS and so on.

The Premise

Scott Tolinski walks the user through a video tutorial using an IDE, typing out code as the video progresses. He explains what each line does, and displays the results out on screen. Each subject has an example objective, and is divided into multiple parts.

Scott also does segments named "Scott tries..." where he walks viewers through some exploration of new tech. These are substantially longer than the tutorial videos.

The Aesthetics

The videos tend to be displays of colored text on a black screen, with Scott explaining the implications of the code as he types it.

And since I'm talking about aesthetics, the color scheme of Level Up Tuts, which is cyan (a color I normally hate) on violet, which somehow works really well as a prologue in some of the videos. However, the more recent prologues featuring Scott on a microphone in a studio room, are nice as well.

The Experience

Tolinski's voice is easy to understand, but even with audio turned off, captions make it easy for the user to follow what's going on. The word "smooth" is very appropriate here. Smooth and comfortable.

The Interface

The beautiful thing about using a YouTube tutorial for learning material, is that you can rewind and rewatch. And because the environment is almost identical to what you see when you write code, it's very comfortable.

What I Liked

The most valuable aspect of the tutorials, in my opinion, is their brevity. The courses themselves aren't that short, but they are delivered in several bite-sized pieces, each ranging from three to eight minutes (or so). This is important, as it makes it easy for the user to stop at a certain point and come back later.

The sheer variety of software and languages that Level Up Tuts can teach you for free, is staggering. It really is the fledgling developer's wet dream.

Tolinski's voice is an asset - it's businesslike and friendly at the same time, tonally neutral and easy on the ears.

What I Didn't

"Let's get started on [subject] right now." When I was viewing the MeteorJS series, this seemed to be Tolinski's go-to phrase for ending a prologue, and after a while it got repetitive. Thankfully, he seems to have since ditched that practice.

Conclusion

This is an excellent resource for learning about web development. Level Up Tuts does its job more than adequately. In particular, for absolute beginners, it's even more of a boon due to its ease of use and its commitment to helping the user, well, level up.

My Rating

9 / 10

Tuts and prayers,
T___T