Early on, I asked for help for why my code wasn't working, explaining why I thought it should. My question was handled by the actual face of the course -- the ostensible expert, Richard Kalehoff, and yet he had only a superficial understanding. All his answers were some variant of "I don't know why this isn't working, copy the example more closely." The conversation went roughly:
Me: Why isn't this code working?
Him: Obviously, because you called .setState in multiple places. Didn't you listen to the lectures? It's asynchronous, so you can't guarantee that it happens in the expected order.
Me: Yes, I know, but the docs say that if you chain them as callbacks, you can ensure that they happen in a specific order <link>. Why isn't that working?
Him: I don't know, no one does it that way. I think it's being overwritten.
<several other commenters point out why that can't be the case>
And I paid $800 for that expertise!
If you've signed up for the course, you can see it here:
https://udacity-react.slack.com/messages/C5T90A6TS/convo/C5T...