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Learn React for free

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Re: Learn React for free

#61

Am I the only one who thinks that courses that don't teach TDD from the start are useless? How can you write an app and not programmatically prove it is working as expected?

Are you referring to teaching TDD at the start of learning programming, or are you referring to using TDD as a vehicle for teaching every programming topic?

If its the latter, that's an approach that I've never seen before but its definitely thought provoking.

Re: Learn React for free

#62

Am I the only one who thinks that courses that don't teach TDD from the start are useless? How can you write an app and not programmatically prove it is working as expected?

I imagine it would be very difficult to teach a topic no one is familiar with by teaching how to test it _first_. A TDD approach to teaching a brand new topic would be very hard to follow and require the viewer to go back to re-watch the testing portion. (Imagine teaching a total beginner how to test a function before teaching them what a function even is...)

However, I think there's a lot of validity to the idea that every tutorial should include lessons on how to test it that new topic, and even give examples of how to implement a TDD approach. But those lessons would (IMO) have to come after the initial parts of the tutorial that taught the concept first.

Re: Learn React for free

#63
post #15

The title could really be a lot better :p It's not like all the other resources cost.

The title doesn't suggest that _all_ other programs cost money. But many people do turn to paid lessons on Udemy (or similar paid programs) first.

Re: Learn React for free

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people actually put that kind of stuff on resumes? I've done a good handful of MOOC courses (usually not all the way through to be fair), but I can't imagine actually paying for a certificate so I can put it on my resume. If I want to show that I know React I'd rather just build something with it, throw it on github, and list it as a side-project.

I don't think Udemy has any kind of completion certificates, and I can't imagine would put "Watched video about X" on their resume.

Truth be told, putting MOOCs on a resume is not good either. Some employers actually consider MOOCs on CVs as red flags.

Re: Learn React for free

#65
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not saying you're taking offense to the critique, but I wouldn't. While I don't use Redux nor have experience with the docs for it, there have been some concepts that I didn't grasp from reading the docs for a topic where others had a better understanding of it coming out where after someone broke it down in a blog, it allowed me to understand it as well (at which point the docs were beneficial as a resource to come…

Right, not taking offense - just saying that it's hard to come up with actionable ways to improve things when most people say they're good, and a few people say they're not helpful, and neither group really gives much in the way of specifics :)

> when most people say they're good

One size doesn't fit all, and some people don't speak for all.

Re: Learn React for free

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be a culture of collecting Udemy courses among fledgeling web developers.

Young web developers certainly seem to love video courses for some reason. Maybe I'm just old and crotchety, (well, one of those is certainly true), but I would much rather get my fix textually and go along at my own pace. Flipping pages or scrolling is still superior to trying to scrub through a video timeline.

I'm agnostic towards the medium if instruction but if I'm a little familiar with something, I would take a reputed book or official docs over video courses.

However, if I get too perplexed by something and need hand-holding to understand something, I look for videos.

Also, videos help in cases with libraries whose documentations are lacking or don't have docs regarding integration with something.

Re: Learn React for free

#67

Why would you even pay to learn React? The official doc is free and takes only few hours of reading.

For programming veterans who have at least some frontend experience and just want to pick up React (i.e. me) the React docs and scattered tutorials/stack overflow sites was sufficient. But I wouldn't remotely recommend this path for someone relatively new to programming.

I wouldn't remotely recommend react for someone relatively new to programming.

Re: Learn React for free

#68
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just saying that there are more valid selling points for React than speed.

It's a valid point - if I were concerned that Jr. developers would parrot every line from the course to the ridicule of very particular Sr. developers I would have specified that the Virtual DOM makes React faster than if it were trying to directly use the actual DOM, all else being equal. But since that wasn't a concern of mine when I made that video (it is far from the main takeaway of the course), I kept it as sim…

But why even bring up the topic of virtual DOM in a course addressed at beginners? If you picture your target audience as so new to the field, why should they even care how React is working under the hood to change the contents of the screen?

Virtual DOM (unless I am mistaken) is a solution to the problem that React would have otherwise introduced. But surely, selling points of a framework are not how it solves its own technical problems, but rather what problems it undertakes to solve for its user.

Re: Learn React for free

#69

Why would you even pay to learn React? The official doc is free and takes only few hours of reading.

For programming veterans who have at least some frontend experience and just want to pick up React (i.e. me) the React docs and scattered tutorials/stack overflow sites was sufficient. But I wouldn't remotely recommend this path for someone relatively new to programming.

You can do the same with Ember.js also. There is a free detailed tutorial for absolute begginers. You build a full featured web app. It is so much fun: https://yoember.com

Re: Learn React for free

#70
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For programming veterans who have at least some frontend experience and just want to pick up React (i.e. me) the React docs and scattered tutorials/stack overflow sites was sufficient. But I wouldn't remotely recommend this path for someone relatively new to programming.

I wouldn't remotely recommend react for someone relatively new to programming.

Why not? It’s simple enough.
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