How long did you try cutting corners? They could have years of experience cuttings corners, and you only have a few days, so of course they should be faster as they are more experienced at cutting corners than you are.
Try a few simple projects (eg: making flappy bird clone, or a simple HTTP server) as fast as possible and screen record all the time you work on the project. Then review the project and recording for things that slowed you down (eg: going down rabbit holes, or your tool-chain is too complex for the task at hand).
After that, do the project over (or a similar project) and try to beat your previous time. The only thing that should matter is the amount of wall-clock time until the project is minimally useful, eg: time to a browser accepting a static webpage, or the game minimally playable.
If you have trouble parting from the book way, an HTTP server might be the better option as there is the "book way" on how its supposed to be done, and what browsers will not vomit all over. Go for the browser rendering a page or two with no visible errors with dev tools closed rather than passing a comprehensive test suite as in the end the only thing that matters is "did the user notice the missing corners".
Try a few simple projects (eg: making flappy bird clone, or a simple HTTP server) as fast as possible and screen record all the time you work on the project. Then review the project and recording for things that slowed you down (eg: going down rabbit holes, or your tool-chain is too complex for the task at hand).
After that, do the project over (or a similar project) and try to beat your previous time. The only thing that should matter is the amount of wall-clock time until the project is minimally useful, eg: time to a browser accepting a static webpage, or the game minimally playable.
If you have trouble parting from the book way, an HTTP server might be the better option as there is the "book way" on how its supposed to be done, and what browsers will not vomit all over. Go for the browser rendering a page or two with no visible errors with dev tools closed rather than passing a comprehensive test suite as in the end the only thing that matters is "did the user notice the missing corners".