In that case, then maybe people who are refused jobs in this industry due to some superficial reason like age can simply take the course and instantly get a job, right?
A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job
51–60 of 200 posts
Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job
#52It's a nice site and everything, but who is this aimed at? It doesn't seem to be non-coders as far as I can tell. 1. You need to already have a github account 2. The setup assumes you have CLI experience 3. The setup assumes you use linux or a mac (because all non-programmers do that) So has wired misunderstood the target audience, or is the site comically anti-n00b?
You should have a github account if you are learning to program. In my experience interviewers expect it.
Interviewers at small Silicon Valley start-ups expect it. The rest of the programming world, not so much.
Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job
#53Excellent how this problem is continuously attempted to be solved. As a wannabe programmer, one thing I always lacked from these sites was the ability to somehow see my code live. I.e. it's fun to write html and css on codecademy or python from LPTHW or whatever but how on earth do I get it on the web or assembled into .app? In actuality, the complexity that surrounds DNS providers, server apps (or whatever you call…
And this is why I always use PHP as an introductory language if I have to teach web dev; the setup part is much more straightforward than it is for Rails/Django/etc., and you don't have to spend a ton of time teaching dozens of concepts (MVC, routes, templating, git, unit tests, ORMs, etc.) before the students can have mini web apps written. Some programmers balk at the idea of teaching PHP with plain HTML/CSS instea…
It's also easy to teach programming with BASIC. That doesn't mean it's particularly good for the students.
Setting up a web server with e.g. Python's SimpleHTTPServer is absolutely trivial, and teaches them a lot more about what a web server actually does (routing requests and building responses), and also prepares the students to use whatever hip python stuff people are doing servers in these days.
Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job
#54Excellent how this problem is continuously attempted to be solved. As a wannabe programmer, one thing I always lacked from these sites was the ability to somehow see my code live. I.e. it's fun to write html and css on codecademy or python from LPTHW or whatever but how on earth do I get it on the web or assembled into .app? In actuality, the complexity that surrounds DNS providers, server apps (or whatever you call…
It would probably be pretty easy to create a tutorial that gets someone to set up a github account, introduces the basics of git/html/css/javascript, and ends up with the tutee having a Github Page that demonstrates what they've done exposed to the world on the internet. Include the DNS setup via cloudflare if they want to buy their own domain. Are there not tutorials like that? And then there would be next steps, us…
That's basically what we do with https://www.makeitwithcode.com, we take people through building things and teach them theory as they go along. Then we go through deploying something to Heroku etc as part of subsequent lessons, so by the end they've got a mixture of the theoretical stuff as well as the more practical "how do I make this be on the internet".
I think there's a few others which also follow the approach of each lesson essentially culminating in a new portfolio piece.
Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job
#55I like the concept, but the very first Javascript problem statement starts this way: Bob is a lackadaisical teenager. In conversation, his responses are very limited. Bob answers 'Sure.' if you ask him a question. He answers 'Woah, chill out!' if you yell at him. He says 'Fine. Be that way!' if you address him without actually saying anything. I'm sure this is my personal biases (and possibly age) showing, but this c…
I agree, it is your age and personal bias. The content of the response strings (I can only assume that's what you're complaining about) has nothing to do with the validity of the challenge.
Furthermore, the programming world has always had a goofy and awkward sense of humor.
Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
thanks a lot for your post. input from active professionals is invaluable to me. i've actually been working on learning angular for the past few weeks. i've stopped updating my github in that time since i'm just doing basic stuff, but once i finish some more tutorials and documentation i plan on building an angular project to display on my github. are there any particular features that would really catch your eye as…
I wouldn't worry too much about coding interview questions, especially if you're looking to just enter the profession. The most important aspects are showing a willingness to learn and an ability to think critically about problems.
Exactly. My previous comment may have been misleading. I don't think it's imperative to have a github account or a showcase of your work (it definitely would not hurt). I only have one public github project and I'm not exactly proud of it.
I normally start all of my interviews by trying to engage in a conversation about programming topics. But as most of the people I interview have little experience outside of Java and seemingly no interest in programming, the conversations are usually very brief. "I like Java." And the occasional "I have heard of something called JQuery. I may learn that."
Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
And this is why I always use PHP as an introductory language if I have to teach web dev; the setup part is much more straightforward than it is for Rails/Django/etc., and you don't have to spend a ton of time teaching dozens of concepts (MVC, routes, templating, git, unit tests, ORMs, etc.) before the students can have mini web apps written. Some programmers balk at the idea of teaching PHP with plain HTML/CSS instea…
It's also easy to teach programming with BASIC. That doesn't mean it's particularly good for the students. Setting up a web server with e.g. Python's SimpleHTTPServer is absolutely trivial, and teaches them a lot more about what a web server actually does (routing requests and building responses), and also prepares the students to use whatever hip python stuff people are doing servers in these days.
The advantage for typical PHP here is that the webserver runs the programs somewhat transparently rather than the other way around with your program creating the webserver and then managing requests. PHP/Apache provides a very simple routing model that correlates 1:1 with the filesystem.
Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job
#58Without a reason to attract (relative) experts beyond philanthropy I think there's a risk that a ballooning amateur/expert ratio could soon cripple this, as happened to the way Matasano Crypto Challenges used to be run.
I hate to be critical as I like the idea, and obviously there's some utility in it for experts as it is but it's much, much less so than for amateurs, and there's no reason to think that this imbalance won't manifest itself sooner or later. I feel this stands a much better chance of solving (or contributing to solving) the education problem and getting good traction if it was positioned to solve a much more general problem - like snippet management - in a really, really good way, and tacked these features on the side.
Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since you don't have a background in software, I would suggest specializing in the language/framework/utility of the day - something like Angular, React, etc. You will have a leg up on the vast majority of developers (the ones who don't read HN). I work for a small startup in the NYC metro area and of course I agree with the parent post. We have a fairly terrible interviewing process. Candidates are phone screened by…
thanks a lot for your post. input from active professionals is invaluable to me. i've actually been working on learning angular for the past few weeks. i've stopped updating my github in that time since i'm just doing basic stuff, but once i finish some more tutorials and documentation i plan on building an angular project to display on my github. are there any particular features that would really catch your eye as…
I recommend that book. For an entry level position, focus on the first section about data structures.
Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job
#60" Exercises consisting of a test suite and a README are available in Clojure, CoffeeScript, C#, C++, Elixir, Erlang, F#, Go, Haskell, JavaScript, Lua, Objective-C, OCaml, Perl5, Python, Ruby, Scala, and Swift." I wonder why no plain C?
Doesn't matter; supports Haskell.