1. Yes, my Facebook language setting is “Pirate”.

How do people learn things these days?

I saw this great question on Facebook, and dropped a really quick simply reply to get the OP moving:

The world is so open with respect to finding this stuff out.
There are untold numbers of people attempting to answer that very question. Check out this YouTube result list: https://www.youtube.com/results…
Because of the number of options, and a local orientation to finding THE answer, it can feel frustrating at first. I would instead recommend not thinking there is one answer, one road, one path to take. Discovery, experimentation, feedback, all can help with figuring out where to go.
As he walks along the way, if he has specific questions, he can ask in groups like this.
Btw, here are some other groups that may be helpful:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/474036352692959
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1467473803479649
https://www.facebook.com/groups/330622280298557

For people who know me, they’d recognize that as standard draft from me, a version of “let me Google that for you”. I hope the text of it helps dissipate some of that perspective. From how I’ve been seeing things online, for most things entry-level, there’s a series on YouTube on how to be/do it.

I genuinely wonder if newcomers to fields, know this and are confident in their ability to benefit from the vast stores of knowledge online. It may be that the results of such searches are too large and thus turn out to be useless. What they’re asking in forums like the one above, may be isn’t a link to a list of search results.

Maybe, they’re looking for a human the quasi-trust, to say, “this one result is the way to get started”. They’re looking for an answer, not necessarily more questions before the answer is found. That kind of thinking might be due to a system of learning based on expecting that such a thing exists - only one answer. But that’s not really how things have worked for me in my journey in building a tech career.

So, I guess the point of encouraging the OP and her brother to start with the list of results is to get comfortable with appreciating there are a lot of answers at first, and as you explore, you can learn to narrow down your searching until you find meaning.