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When a Coursera course is way better than the one offered by your university…
A university student's rant...
I study Electrical and Computer Engineering and during the first semester of the second year I selected an optional course: Web Programming. It was believed among students that the course would be really easy, and it was. All the student had to do was build a very simple website using HTML, CSS and a few line of JS. A website containing three or four pages all of which had to be validated using a markup validation service.
Yeah, sure, I passed the course just like everyone else who bothered enough to spend an hour or two working on the project. Oh, I almost forgot! We had an one-hour workshop on Dreamweaver!
So, by that point, everybody was a front-end developer, right?!
That happened over three years ago, and because of that course web-development didn’t impress me…
Thankfully, the last few months I’ve became interested in Web Development, and I’ve been reading some articles, spending time on smashing magazine, making some progress on FreeCodeCamp and taking relevant courses on Coursera!
In fact, a few days ago I completed the Coursera course “HTML, CSS and Javascript for Web Developers”.
Oh boy, the things I didn’t know that I didn’t know…
<sarcasm>Did you know there was a term called “responsive design” and that there are frameworks like bootstrap?</sarcasm>
Well, I d i d n ’ t k n o w ! ! ! (even though I had taken the university’s course).
I understand that bootstrap was introduced in 2011 and I took the university course in late 2012, but by that time, bootstrap was quite popular and also there were other frameworks available before bootstrap that could have been included in the course! (even today, there is no reference in responsive design in the university’s course).
In just five weeks the coursera course managed to teach me more, in a more organized and meaningful way than my university’s course in a whole semester!
When I started the coursera course I shared it with a friend of mine. His response: “yeah, sure, but web development is pretty easy… I didn’t spend much time to complete that project three years ago!”
That course three years ago gave birth to misconceptions in students' minds that web development is easy! Yeah, sure, it can be easy to built a simple, non responsive, non interactive website! But that's not how the world works nowadays , right?!
A few months ago, in the early days of August, I attended Flock, the Fedora community conference. During a break I spent some time speaking with a Red Hat employee about student internships. He told me, and I paraphrase: “We know that students don’t have a solid background and that they haven’t learned in the university what we need them to!”
Currently I’m planning to apply for a front-end developer internship position here in Greece.
Yesterday I wrote my CV, added university courses relevant to that position and listed coursera courses under independent coursework… While writing those I made these thoughts…
What if that course 3 years ago was as good as the coursera course… all the things I’d know by now…6 -
Udemy courses are targeted at ABSOLUTE beginners. It's excruciating to pull through and finish the course "just because". And some of these courses are jam-packed with 30-60 hours just for them to appear legit, but the reality is the value you get could be packed to 3-5 hours.
You're better off just searching for or watching for the things that you need on Google or YouTube.
You'll learn more when building the actual stuff. Yes, it's good to go for the documentation. Just scratch the "Getting Started" section and then start building what you want to build already. Don't read the entire documentation from cover to cover for the sake of reading it. You won't retain everything anyway. Use it as a reference. You'll gain wisdom through tons of real-world experience. You will pick things up along the way.
Don't watch those tutorials with non-native English speakers or those with a bad accent as well. Native speakers explain things really well and deliver the message with clarity because they do what they do best: It's their language.
Trust me, I got caught up in this inefficient style a handful of times. Don't waste your time.8 -
Intern's CV says they have technical skills with MS Office, MySQL and JavaScript. Last month I let my manager know that this intern doesn't really know anything, so we let her do a Freecodecamp course, after which she still cannot build a basic HTML and CSS page and doesn't understand the relationship between HTML and CSS.
My manager bought her a Laravel course for beginners and today I discovered that she also doesn't understand databases, because she tried to enter an alphabetic character into a column that only accepts integers. She doesn't read/understand the error codes thrown by the application.
She tried to access a route which she created in her Laravel app by accessing it via the phpmyadmin dashboard and called me and wasted my time by asking me why her route isn't working. She literally does not understand how computers work, or how the HTTP protocol works, even less so how a file structure works. She cannot translate abstractions to practical solutions.
She either deliberately lied on her CV to get a job, or she's just really dumb and doesn't understand what the term "technical skills" mean.
I've told my manager multiple times how I think she's in the wrong job, but they keep pushing things beyond her capabilities onto her desk. I was told I'd get an intern to help me with my work load, but I got signed up into an experiment I did not consent to (manager's words, it's an experiment to help uplift people with bad degrees and a poor background). I am not a good teacher, I hate doing it.28 -
Three years ago, tried to learn some JavaScript, failed miserably. Two years ago, managed to learn some Java through Udacity courses. Last year I started learning native Android development and got my first coding summer job. Now I'm back to learning JavaScript through Freecodecamp and that bitch ain't got shit on me no more!3
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Coding is a superpower. With it, you can bend reality to your will. You can make the world a better place. Or you can destroy it.
Source: freecodecamp2 -
This poor fella is asking a simple question we've all asked it before.. It makes me angry to see that some beginners get discouraged thanks to the toxic community at stackoverflow, many of the idiots on stackoverflow forget that they were once beginners and didn't know a thing.. Even if the question sounds stupid for you, why can't you just help them, instead of being an ignorant smartass.. 😠
13 -
A survey by freeCodeCamp showed the following result.
No wonder many are single. :D
What about you people from devRant? Are you single?
10 -
Intern : "Stackoverflow is the most friendly platform to learn coding. They provide a good certification for programming skill."
Me : " Stop this bullshit before I present you a smack-overflow across your face."
Since when Stackoverflow described as freecodecamp?6 -
Was looking for an app to see if there was one for free code camp to start learning python. Auto correct suggestion wasn't bad at all 😂
Found sololearn and happy with that for now
15 -
Why I try to ALWAYS use semicolons in JS:
In short, weird shit happens sometimes
An example:
So I'm doing a small project for freeCodeCamp, working with the Twitch API. I decided to make an array on the fly to append a few elements to a documentFrag in order after setting all my props. Forgot a semicolon. Apparently, Babel transpiles this:
info.innerHTML = (``)
[span, caret, info].forEach(elm => frag.appendChild(elm));
to this if you omit the semicolon:
info.innerHTML = ' '[(span, caret, info)]
this is why you should avoid relying on ASI, you're going to have to remember them in other languages out there, so for your own sanity, might as well get used to them. Just thought I'd share--who knows, might help a JS newb out there somewhere.5 -
I'm teaching myself ATM. I'm currently using freecodecamp, taking courses on Udemy, I have the books HTML & CSS and JavaScript & jQuery by Jon Duckett. Basically using as many of my free resources and catching classes when they're on sale.
I've also started a Meetup group for students and self learners like myself.
Any advice for me? Anyone want to mentor?
I'm really enjoying this learning process. And am positive I've found a career that I will actually love. I want
19 -
@skayo are you still around?
I have wish 😊
Could you please make a devRant Bot for answering to newbies?
Like... rookie: "halp i want to learn JavaScript, what should i do?"
heyheni: @ newbiebot js
newbiebot: Hi @ rookie welcome to dev Rant. The community for developers to rant and vent. Here are some free JavaScript learning resources
- freecodecamp
- scrimba
- JavaScript 30
...
Best of luck!
rookie: but i want to do android apps to!
heyheni: @newbiebot android
Newbiebot: hi welcome...
what do you think?10 -
Holy shit man...
I know its supposed to be hard but I cant ignore how much I want to give up right now.
I've been learning JS for months now, doing daily algorithm challenges, going strong on my freecodecamp dev map and still, I feel like I might no be cut out for this.
It's been more than a week now trying to implement a minimax algorithm into my tic tac toe game. I can't, for the life of me its just getting more frustrating by the day and its driving me crazy! How the fuck am I supposed to ever get a junior webdev job if I can't do something as simple as this!, And I keep reading and reading the theory but I cant implement it into my code! It just makes me want to quit (again)!
I really need to work on my attitude...1 -
I'm new to javascript and I'm doing the freecodecamp. I was doing a challenge and I was looking everywhere how to fix my problem (I needed to use an API from another page) turns out all I needed to do was add the Jquery library, I've been stuck with this for HOURS FML4
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Hello World!
Where to start? I am trying to learn coding and found FreeCodeCamp today. Anything else you could suggest?8 -
Udemy, Skillshare, Coursera, Pluralsight, and FreeCodeCamp are all kinda garbage.
Has anyone tried Team Treehouse?
I have a strong feeling that Udacity is the best thing that I've ever discovered in my learning life.
Can you share other online courses I haven't mentioned? Thanks.11 -
What could possibly be wrong with me if I had to look at almost every single answer of the Basic Algorithm Scripting exercises on FreeCodeCamp? I spend days tying to solve some of them and just couldn’t. Had to look at the answers. Then I try few days after and maybe remember half of the answer. How can I change this?3
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On freecodecamp I'm now at the point where I have to build a full functional website.. It's getting excited yooooooo1
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Does anyone blog or post on dev topics / tutorials, and if so what platform do you use these days?
- Medium is just full of aggressive paywall crap these days - not interested.
- Freecodecamp is more geared towards tutorials, though I wouldn't be against this - but seems like it's mainly geared towards "getting started" tutorials, and there's no way to comment on articles either.
- dev.to seems to be more of a "Twitter for devs" rather than a blogging platform.
- Blogger is as good as dead.
- Self-hosted platforms require me to maintain them, and I can't be arsed with the SEO side of things.
Anything I'm missing? Apart from to give up and do something more worthwhile with my time of course...5 -
My dev goal for the new year will be teaching others, and I could use some help!
For quite some time I have been thinking about setting up some kind of community project in my area teaching people who are having a hard time finding a job in their field how to program, specifically web development, in order to advance their job prospects. There is a lot of demand here in Holland and as we all know it doesn't take much more than dedication, disambiguation skills and an almost fanatical fondness for solving puzzles to lead a very happy life as a developer. I'm hoping 2019 will be the year.
What complete courses can you recommend to teach someone how to code, that are fun/inspiring enough to keep someone motivated (and able to go to school and/or make a living in the meantime) until they can use their built up skills and portfolio to get a first job (perhaps 1-2 years)?
I plan on tutoring once or twice a week for a few hours and being available for chat the rest of the week when not working. I have enough experience (and curiosity) to help with any assignment but I do not have that much spare time, which is why I need this resource to be as good as possible, and to need as little extra explanation as possible.
My benchmark is the excellent freecodecamp, but I'm wondering if anything else is available. Bonus points for anything in Dutch, or anything that stands out by explaining things in the clearest way possible, and with great assignments of course.
Also I'd be very interested in any stories about similar (not-for-profit) initiatives, especially from a learner's point of view.
Thanks!1 -
my next challenge is now building a personal portfolio page :)
I'll create a one pager.
I'm just excited cause its a lil bit harder than building an easy tribute page. My heart will go on xD2 -
Started with flow chart programming in a robotics club after class in middle school.
Joined another club where I spent the first 3-4 weeks learning Python and JS basics on freecodecamp.
Programming classes on algorithms and frameworks in high school and college.
Beyond that, mostly reading documentation, stackoverflow and some udemy courses. -
I'm all for alternative methods of learning but this post on FreeCodeCamp is total bollocks.
How does someone take and complete a class in data structures in one week?
https://medium.freecodecamp.com/how...5 -
!rant
Does anyone know of any websites that have project ideas with requirements/user stories. I generally get side tracked if I sit down and just build something. There are a few full stack projects on freecodecamp with user stories which made me wonder if there are any other similar sites.2 -
Not a rant, but a question: I'm currently learning to develop for the web through freecodecamp. They decided some time ago to change their curriculum from Angular to React, kinda moving away from the MEAN set of technologies. Now that Angular 2 is out and looking good, I'm not sure if I should stick to their curriculum or learn it in place of React. What do you guys think?5
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hoi guys,
on freecodecamp i had a lesson to build a website on codepen.io with bootstrap.
except that it has some code features, it felt like normal coding.
i have to write all on my own also.
And then I opened a html5 project on netbeans with downloaded bootstrap and it filled the index. html plus css and other files with much content (but looked like shit)..
why is there such a big difference between codepen bootstrap and netbeans bootstrap?6 -
Another newbie question
Is ruby on rails worth learning now and is it dead ? I am a bit of a newbie to backend. I did create a site for a friend a year or two ago with django but still it was pretty simple. My horrible code is available here :- https://github.com/akshaytolwani123...
Also is this course on coursera for free on audit decent for the basics https://coursera.org/learn/... or should I just use freecodecamp or similar.5 -
!collegerant
I HATE OOPS concepts, and thefuck is cubic-bezier(0.25, 0.25, 0.75, 0.75);
Yes my professors are terrible. All hail FreeCodeCamp and SO.4 -
I had been assigned a task to create a cross-platform desktop application that keeps track of the expiry of a certain product and notify in real-time.
So, my journey to create such an application starts today and the list below describes the first few hours.
1. Google/Date and time in javascript
2. Google/Javascript date object
3. W3school/Time in javascript
4. W3school/Javascript date getTime() method
5. Google/Are electron.js applications platform independent
6. Google/Dart for desktop applications
7. Google/Is dart cross-platform
8. Google/Best desktop application framework
9. Google/Python for desktop app development
10. Freecodecamp/How to build your first desktop application in python
11. Google/Pyqt
12. Google/Which is the best technology to build cross-platform desktop application
13. Google/Cross-platform desktop app development for windows mac and linux
14. Udemy / cross platform desktop app development for windows mac and linux
15. Youtube/ electron desktop app, demo
16. Youtube/ electron.js is obsolete
17. Youtube/Neutralinojs
18. Youtube/ neutralinojs tutorial
19. Google/Neutralinojs or electronjs
20. Google/Math.js
21. Google/Math.js/JS Bin
22. Google/Cannot find package “math.js”
23. StackOverFlow/How do I resolve “cannot find module” error using Node.js
24. Google/ is it better to install npm packages locally
25. Quora/ why should you stop installing NPM packages globally
26. Google/ what is nvm
27. Google/nvm version check
28. Stackoverflow/node version management on windows
29. Github/coreybutler/nvm-windows: a nvm for windows. Ironically written in Go
30. Google/how to uninstall a npm package
31. Npm docs/uninstalling packages and dependencies
32. Google/require in javascript
33. Youtube/how to install electronjs
34. Youtube/electronjs in 100s(fireship.io)
35. Roryok.com/electronjs memory usage compared to other cross-platform frameworks
36. Google/is electronjs memory hungry
37. Youtube/sql in one hour
38. Youtube/learn sql in 60 mins
39. Geeksforgeeks/connect mysql with node app
40. Stackoverflow/How to return to previous directory using cmd
41. Stackoverflow/how to require using const
42. Geeksforgeeks/difference between require and es6 import and export
TO BE CONTINUED...1 -
Is freecodecamp frontend certificate worth something in the community, I am about get mine soon only two projects away...5
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The freecodecamp beta is so ****ing buggy, all I want to do is brush up on my JavaScript and learn a little ES6 and nothing works and their validation is so terrible that I have to bring my code out and validate it somewhere else to make sure I’m doing it right. This isn’t a beta, it’s an alpha1
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Thoughts on Lambda school or FreeCodeCamp? I have a full tome job, pretty hard to go to an actual university and here in Northern Utah, there isn’t a lot of dev jobs here.8
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Hi All, a friend of mine wants to start learning UI/UX Design (Web, Apps etc) can anyone suggest some sites that could be helpful? With tutorials and courses?
What would be the equivalent of sites like Codeacademy, W3Schools, Freecodecamp, Github repos, but for UI/UX Design?
Are there any Github repos that list such sites, tutorials, courses, articles and etc?2 -
Should I go for freecodecamp or app academy open or some other free resource to learn full stack web development. Freecodecamp's explanations are starting to get over my head. App academy open seems great except they teach ruby on rails before teaching MERN stack and there are only three reviews on the internet I could find12
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Newbie question
Any good free resources for full stack web development. Also if a resource teaches mainly frontend but also teaches some backend it is a full stack web development resource in my eyes. I was looking at freecodecamp but it is a bit too vast for me. I am also looking at the cokplete intro to web development v2 course by Brian holt for free on frontend masters but it is 2 years old and has not been updated. Also it does not teach that much bakcend hust node and express.
Also another question is frontend masters good for web development. I did not find many threads about it. I got a discount for it which gives me a one year subscription for 195 dollars18
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