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Most of the time, you don’t really need another MOOC

eugeneyan.com

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Re: Most of the time, you don’t really need another MOOC

#61

Post by bdcravens »

compacct27 wrote: post #53

Anyone who's professionally coding right now has one super-effective option that's rarely talked about: Hire someone knowledgeable to walk you through what you're learning. I've been doing a heavy C++ project, and as a web developer, I was basically a walking footgun. I realized this early on, hired a total expert in the field (the guy has contributed to C++ standards committees before), and am Loving how smoothly th…

Codementor.io is good for this. (most there are in the $60-100/hour range, and you can work in as small as 15 minute intervals)

Re: Most of the time, you don’t really need another MOOC

#62

Post by [deleted] »

elaus wrote: post #13
Gys wrote: post #7

MOOC in case you were wondering like me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course

I wish articles would at least explain acronyms the first time they're mentioned. Just putting the full form in parenthesis would go a long way and not disturb readers that already know them. Maybe it's because I'm not a native speaker, but I have never heard of MOOCs before – and I'm consuming a lot of content in English on a daily basis (e.g. on HN).

[deleted]

Re: Most of the time, you don’t really need another MOOC

#63

Post by fantod »

qntty wrote: post #22

Off topic, but I find it very off-putting when people write blog posts using "we". Like speak for yourself, I have my own reasons for doing things. It's to the point where I don't even pay attention to what the person is saying because they're being so presumptive in telling me what I think. Which is weird, because I really enjoy the convention of using we in math.

After years in academia, it's incredible how much conscious effort I have to put into writing (or giving a talk) without using "we".

Re: Most of the time, you don’t really need another MOOC

#64

Post by commandlinefan »

> You just need to know enough to start; the rest you’ll pick up along the way.

Hmmm... I guess that's technically true (and eventually you do need to start), but I've seen a lot of people continue to code in very inefficient ways because they actually don't know that a better way even exists. If you're not starting because you're not done learning, you're probably not doing it right, but if you're done learning because you've started, you're also not doing it right.

Re: Most of the time, you don’t really need another MOOC

#65

Post by abcdabcd987 »

mariodiana wrote: post #6

If you find a really good tutorial by programmers who are both excellent teachers and experienced in that particular field, it beats JIT learning on a personal project in one important respect. You get exposure to the One True Way of doing things. What do I mean? Years ago, I learned to program iOS from the Big Nerd Ranch book. The most important thing I got out of that was learning enough about the Cocoa-Touch frame…

> If you find a really good tutorial by programmers who are both excellent teachers and experienced in that particular field, it beats JIT learning on a personal project in one important respect. You get exposure to the One True Way of doing things.

That's exactly my feeling when I was watching Jon Gjengset's Rust tutorials. I like his real reactions to unexpected problems. Really learned a lot from this kind of lengthy but realistic videos. https://www.youtube.com/c/JonGjengset/featured

Re: Most of the time, you don’t really need another MOOC

#66

Post by compacct27 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #56
compacct27 wrote: post #53

Anyone who's professionally coding right now has one super-effective option that's rarely talked about: Hire someone knowledgeable to walk you through what you're learning. I've been doing a heavy C++ project, and as a web developer, I was basically a walking footgun. I realized this early on, hired a total expert in the field (the guy has contributed to C++ standards committees before), and am Loving how smoothly th…

> $150/hr in 10 hour chunks and get the most in-depth insight into what I'm doing Yeah, it's... an option, I guess, if you've got the dough. Many of us don't have that kind of budget so we look for some of those experts who have blogs and youtube channels.

That's totally fair, this guy is on the higher end and this is the only project I'd be willing to pay that for.

You can find one for less, though, if you ever find yourself wanting one. Mentor.io is a good place for it.

Re: Most of the time, you don’t really need another MOOC

#67

Post by jamses »

I found early-on that MOOCs were terrible for learning because of the barriers they put up. Locked-in time schedules, a trend towards very short "bitty" and simplistic videos that don't tend to offer any direction when they're done.

Youtube lectures on the other hand have been immensely valuable, especially if you can find a relevant (university) reading list and/or problem sets if they're applicable. All you really need as a self-learner is someone to say "head in this direction". After that I agree with op that finding something fun to do is the best way to learn.

On an aside, as a text highlighter (I highlight the text I'm reading), the javascript "tweet this" pop-up on this site is horrific.

Re: Most of the time, you don’t really need another MOOC

#68

Post by commandlinefan »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #56
compacct27 wrote: post #53

Anyone who's professionally coding right now has one super-effective option that's rarely talked about: Hire someone knowledgeable to walk you through what you're learning. I've been doing a heavy C++ project, and as a web developer, I was basically a walking footgun. I realized this early on, hired a total expert in the field (the guy has contributed to C++ standards committees before), and am Loving how smoothly th…

> $150/hr in 10 hour chunks and get the most in-depth insight into what I'm doing Yeah, it's... an option, I guess, if you've got the dough. Many of us don't have that kind of budget so we look for some of those experts who have blogs and youtube channels.

I'm trying to figure out what I know well enough to charge $150/hour to teach people now...

Re: Most of the time, you don’t really need another MOOC

#69

Post by duxup »

As someone who was largely self taught in the past 3 years, my biggest frustration with learning on the go online has been the flexibility of the code / lack of contest with free online resources.

Yeah if I google how to build a widget to add to an application, I can find that. However, the widget is often so tightly coded that it couldn't ever be useful, it doesn't fit a given pattern or concept... it's JUST that widget.

A widget that just adds +1 to a thing (an admittedly contrived example) might do the job for what I googled, but oh so often it is inflexible and doesn't really teach me much about WHY it was coded the way it did... it just produced an outcome that I googled.

Re: Most of the time, you don’t really need another MOOC

#70

Post by nickjj »

I can't speak for how other folks run courses but to me the value of a course is a combination of having well tested code to use and access to full time support.

If you bought a course on how to develop X with Y web framework and the course comes with lots of well written code, high test coverage and was extracted out of multiple real world projects that's basically buying a time machine because it might take you 6+ months to write the same code from scratch and you won't have the insights gathered from years of practical experience. Or even worse you might never get started because you get trapped by information paralysis.

I know a few people who have taken my https://buildasaasappwithflask.com/ course and built very successful businesses in less than a year. One of them is making $90,000 / month and initially spent like 4 months customizing the code from the course to do what his service needed to do.

Note: The TL;DR on the above course is it's not a course on how to find a SAAS app idea. It's focused on how to build the SAAS app itself using Flask, Docker, Stripe, etc..

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