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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

#71

Post by serjester »

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…

The counterpoint is if you dive right into a project and make a bunch mistakes it'll stick a lot more when you learn the "proper" way.

Students not understanding "why" something is done a certain way is the downfall of countless courses. But unfortunately, more often than not, you're not in a position to understand why people tell you to do X until you've personally done Y.

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

#72

Post by hirundo »

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?

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

#73

Post by __mharrison__ »

(Disclaimer: I make my living teaching)

Author is correct, most don't complete MOOC's (for various reasons).

However a good teacher is like a coach and will grease the skids for learning.

My experience teaching Python and Data Science at some of the biggest companies in the world is that you can be a professional and still have knowledge gaps. You don't know what you don't know. Once you fill in those gaps it can open many doors.

I elaborate a bit on my blog: https://www.metasnake.com/blog/learn-python-2021.html

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

#74

Post by squeaky-clean »

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 like this idea, obviously I couldn't afford it for every thing I want to learn, but there are some topics where I can't really find quality tutorials/MOOCs/whatever and would be willing to pay to learn.

How would one go about doing this? Was that person listing their mentoring services somewhere, or did you contact them directly?

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

#75

Post by ghaff »

minimaxir wrote: post #25

I wrote a similar article 2 years ago ( https://minimaxir.com/2018/10/data-science-protips/ ) arguing against MOOCs for learning data science/machine learning skills, as they are not reflective of real world applications. I'm all for personal projects especially in DS/ML (it's how I started my career in the field), but the unfortunate reality is that there's really no way nowadays to learn the hard/boring parts of DS…

A lot of it may come down to research AI vs. applied AI. MOOCs that are online versions of university courses are heavily slanted towards research AI, which involves lots of math and may not be all that applicable to what most data scientists are doing on a day-to-day basis.

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

#76

Post by __mharrison__ »

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…

There's a reason why top performers in any industry (CEO's, athletes, actors) have coaches. I can explain to you how to ski all day long, but if I get you on a hill you will learn many times faster.

Coaching works (in programming contexts as well).

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

#77

Post by omarhaneef »

What you can pick up from a video is a workflow you may not have though of. For example, I don't think beginners have the unix console open logged into the database, while they have another window with the back end code, and then the developer tools open at the same time so they can debug the flow "end to end" unless they are taught to do so.

Sometime they may not think to think: why isn't the data appearing? did that data even get read into the database? Do I have to open the dbase now to see? 5 minutes of watching someone do it can save you years of learning that workflow.

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

#78

Post by ghaff »

bserge wrote: post #59
felixr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I understood JIT == just-in-time because the acronym is used for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_compilation But I did not realise it was actually an established acronym for learning, too.

It's also used in manufacturing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_manufacturing

I'm guessing that's where it started. It was/is part of the whole lean manufacturing revolution.

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

#79

Post by compacct27 »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #74
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 like this idea, obviously I couldn't afford it for every thing I want to learn, but there are some topics where I can't really find quality tutorials/MOOCs/whatever and would be willing to pay to learn. How would one go about doing this? Was that person listing their mentoring services somewhere, or did you contact them directly?

I made a post on the C++ subreddit (r/cpp) asking for a mentor. Talked about the project and said I was willing to pay. Some people pointed me towards others (those people were too busy), but one guy reached out and had an online presence I could check out before deciding.

The mods removed my post btw :/ apparently it was against the subreddit rules to ask for help. Found the guy before they could remove my post though, and here I am.

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

#80

Post by dinglefairy »

hrrmm, any suggestions on personal projects that will make mill-i-ons?

I'm half serious. like how can i make an algorithm that auto trades vwap starting with a $1000 account?

anyone have links for projects in; building your own receiver. building a laser. building a 4 story walk up multi family unit. building a particle accelerator programming a kernel from scratch how to get a super hot mail order Russian bride for free how to convert your car to hydrogen cell how to create your own cannabis genetics

i threw some in there to see if you're paying attention, but maybe there should be a thread for cool projects [not just github like].

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