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

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

#81

Post by omarhaneef »

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…

This raises the question of your "learning workflow". I tried something similar but found I wasn't learning much and he (it happened to be a guy) was doing all of the work and I was barely engaging with it. We had a shared github account, he would do some work and then explain it to me.

What is your workflow?

(10 hours is a large chunk!)

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

#82

Post by compacct27 »

omarhaneef wrote: post #81
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…

This raises the question of your "learning workflow". I tried something similar but found I wasn't learning much and he (it happened to be a guy) was doing all of the work and I was barely engaging with it. We had a shared github account, he would do some work and then explain it to me. What is your workflow? (10 hours is a large chunk!)

Thankfully, mine's been the opposite. Idk your situation, but I had a well-defined project in hand before I found him. I had done some work on it already, even.

When I took him on, my flow's been this: I do as much work as I can, get stuck, then he's there to pull me out of the mess I made. I learn a ton along the way, and he'll point out topics for me to research on my own.

10 hours is a large chunk, but it's lasted a full 2 months with probably a good month left in it. This project edits some PhysX engine code for an Unreal Engine-based game I'm making. The level of technical depth in it is beyond anything I've done before, so I pulled out the stops for it.

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

#83

Post by compacct27 »

hirundo wrote: post #72
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…

How did you connect with your expert?

Made a post on the c++ subreddit asking for a mentor. Described my project I wanted help on and said I was willing to pay.

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

#84

Post by christiansakai »

I keep seeing some of my LinkedIn social circles people posting their "Just finished course". It is delusional. They hope to get noticed by people thus offer them a job?

Sometimes I just out of curiosity go into their profile to see, and true enough, all of them are unemployed and have too much bs on their LinkedIn.

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

#85

Post by Programmer12389 »

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…

I agree with the advice of getting a tutor. I am working with a tutor who has a PhD in mathematics to teach me various fields of mathematics. Doing homeworks from textbooks with someone to check your work and answer your questions has been a tremendous resource. I used to post my questions online but having a personal tutor has accelerated my progress.

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

#86

Post by tropicalrun »

I'm curious what people here think about building projects in remote teams as a strategy for learning software developer skills? Could also apply to other related roles like UX/UI designers, product owners, etc.

Specifically, after a certain base skill level has been reached. Also, these teams would include deadlines, navigating git/github, time management, communicating with others, etc.

Full-disclosure: I'm a part of a community / startup that organizes such teams for learners. I don't want to be spammy so will refrain from saying the name. It actually grew out of a MOOC forum to help with some of the issues mentioned in OP's article. It ran for about 3 years free as a time-intensive side project, but switched to paid to reduce another common MOOC issue (ghosting).

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

#87

Post by omarhaneef »

compacct27 wrote: post #82
omarhaneef wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This raises the question of your "learning workflow". I tried something similar but found I wasn't learning much and he (it happened to be a guy) was doing all of the work and I was barely engaging with it. We had a shared github account, he would do some work and then explain it to me. What is your workflow? (10 hours is a large chunk!)

Thankfully, mine's been the opposite. Idk your situation, but I had a well-defined project in hand before I found him. I had done some work on it already, even. When I took him on, my flow's been this: I do as much work as I can, get stuck, then he's there to pull me out of the mess I made. I learn a ton along the way, and he'll point out topics for me to research on my own. 10 hours is a large chunk, but it's lasted…

Interesting. So you don't sit with him 10 hours at a time.

You have him -- more or less -- on call when you get stuck for 30 minutes at a time?

Or do you batch all the roadblocks you have, then ask him to schedule something at, say 10am, the next day. He looks at your git repo and the issues you have?

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

#88

Post by dominotw »

elliekelly wrote: post #17
angarg12 wrote: post #12

Many years ago I used to be very proactive about my learning. I read tons of books, did MOOCs, tutorials, learnt new tools and frameworks... What I found with time is that I forgot most of those. Except for the very basic and foundational concepts, anything that I haven't kept practicing is almost gone. I can't even remember most of the courses or books I've read. Even worse, in some cases I ended up actually using t…

> anything that I haven't kept practicing is almost gone. I can't even remember most of the courses or books I've read. I don’t think this is unique to MOOCs. I think this is a fact of life.

scary to get treated by a doctor who forgot most of the stuff they learnt in med school.

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

#89

Post by bilbo0s »

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 hesitate to throw this out here, because it goes against the "do it as a business" ethos here on HN. However, if you are really interested in some topic, why not trade your knowledge for the knowledge you seek?

In centuries past, if there were a mathematician who wanted to know more about botany, it was the most normal thing in the world for him to contact a botanist interested in math and trade the knowledge. This usually involved one going to stay at the home/studio/estate/whatever of the other for what today would be considered a long period of time. The upside was that you could learn all you needed to know from what was as good a source as you were likely to ever find.

If you think about a modern version of this model, you could get all the information you need on the subject you're interested in and it wouldn't cost you a nickel. We have the internet, they didn't. Might even get a pretty good friend out of the deal.

Of course you need knowledge to trade, and pretty deep knowledge at that. At the same time, if there is an arborist out there looking to learn programming, and you have heaven only knows how many fruit trees on your property, what do you have to lose by checking his/her clients for references? You can teach him/her programming. They can teach you what you need to know to care for your property. You guys can each contact each other's references to make sure you're actually experts in your respective fields. There doesn't seem to be any risk in trying? (Unless I'm missing it?)

It just seems a really easy fix to the money problem. And you can access knowledge from everyone from arborists and physicists to dance teachers and electric motorcycle engineers to international development experts and nanotech engineers. The sky would be the limit.

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

#90

Post by Balgair »

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

For me at least, there is an over-abundance of thickly-accented English-speaking Indian people playing specifically trap music in the background, when it comes to 'good tutorials'. Not by any means a majority, but they punch well above their weight-class. It's so very odd, but they really do know how to guide me on what it is that I need a hand with.

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