Re:New Treehouse site launches
by russelluresti on Tuesday October 29, 2013 @11:38AM
(#6634892)
I've tried code school, codecademy, and treehouse, myself (never really got into Lynda.com, seemed like the quality was too varied).
I like the treehosue approach - videos plus quizzes plus exercises plus projects - but I do think it's aimed mainly at beginners (which is probably why it felt goofy to you, because they're trying to make it approachable for people who aren't yet comfortable with technology).
I do wish there was a resource out there like Treehouse for learning more advanced topics.
GA's Dash and CodeSchool have taught me more in the last two weeks than I could have gotten at the same rate in all the self-help books I've collected.
It's not video. It's video+challenges. CodeSchool in particular has challenging challenges where you have to actually think, not just regurgitate.
What is your experience with in-browser, project-based sites, like code academy, code school, and code avengers?
Khan Academy is also in-browser project based. I think it supplements learning, but they don't really push the boundary. Like for Code Academy (which I forgot to mention before), the exercises were very simple and I didn't think they pushed me to think harder. Way too easy. I want very hard projects/exercises but I also want them to give me study materials that will help to me understand the problem. Code Academy won't make anyone a serious programmer, probably not even a hobbyist.
The other two mentioned, I never used them before. I might check them out.
- Lydia: Probably the best in terms of depth and options. But I only tried couple of them.
- TutsPlus: Second best in my opinion. But again, limited experience with only one author.
- Khan Academy: Love the UI, love the gamification, love the concept. But its more for entry level education (for now) and less of high-level, in depth learning. If they can apply the gamification to higher level learning (or just have more higher level content) it would be awesome.
- Treehouse: I have very very limited experience (just the php video series), I felt that it was a bit goofy. Like their target audience is someone who is not computer savvy or 12 year old.
I feel video is probably not the best medium for learning programming related contents. I think video can definitely supplement a text heavy learning, but otherwise I think textbooks are better way to learn programming (maybe its just me).
I would love to know experience from other HN-er's or any other online video tutorial sites they might have tried.