CodeTips – Learn to programme, with little or no prior experience | Hacker News Reader

CodeTips – Learn to programme, with little or no prior experience

codetips.co.uk

54 pointsalgodaily12 comments

Semi-related, pedantic remark on the title: in British English we commonly use the word "programme" in place of "program" for e.g. TV programmes and concert programmes. However, even in British English the correct form for a computer program is "program".

I have a copy of A Guide to Programming the National - Elliott 803 Electronic Digital Computer, and it spells it "programme" throughout, but that was written back in 1962. However, I haven't seen it spelt that way in the last 40 years or so.

Pedantic remark on your pedantic remark – in the title it's used (still incorrectly) as a verb, not as a noun, so it would be the correct form for a programming computer is "to program".

Thanks :) I'll get that changed on the site.

there's something very messed up with the organisation here. I tried two articles as entry points to see if this would be good for some of my nephews an nieces; the first was the first article in the 'Beginner' tag, which turns out to be:

https://www.codetips.co.uk/what-is-a-switch-statement/

In previous articles we've discussed the if statement... what previous articles? So, back to the front page to find a starting point. "FizzBuzz", "An Introduction to Coding Challenges", "An interview with Kevin Ball", "Arrays and loops with Javascript"...then finally one that seems like it might be the entry point:

https://www.codetips.co.uk/writing-your-first-javascript-pro...

If you've made it to this article you should have read the JavaScript Introduction, and be familiar with variables and data-types. wait, what?

There seems to be no guided course here, or even a way in each article to get to the previous article, when clearly a lot of these assume prior knowledge (there is, but it's right at the end of the article, some of which are pages long).

This could really do with a 'New readers start here', and put the navigation - even the fact that there _are_ previous articles - up top in each article.

Hey,

I'm the CodeTips founder/owner, and I'm grateful for your feedback.

I'd like to get this to a position that your niece and nephew are able to use it, so if you're willing to continue the discussion that would be great.

Just to address your concerns....

- Where I have referenced previous articles, they are linked. For example the `if` reference is a link, that will take you to the article explaining that concept. I just checked the articles you mentioned, and the links are there and working.

- you're absolutely right that the articles are from latest - oldest. It wasn't necessarily built to be a "course", but I can see why the structure could be confusing. The balance is not having to make returning users scroll to the bottom to find new content, perhaps I could add a button that allows the user to sort the articles as they want to see them?

It sounds like they would like a "start here" link, not having to click random articles and follow the rabbit-hole back to the beginning - that's all.

That's fair. The issue with a "start here" page is the site is not designed to be a journey necessarily.

Obviously all the beginner articles are first, but then you have different language articles, serverless articles, intermediate articles etc. You could take any of those paths.

Does that make sense?

I think a very simple solution is to use categories. Tag articles under things like "beginner", "intermediate" etc. Don't be afraid to use multiple categories and group article sets together.

Simple change but it would make huge payoffs UX-wise.

Edit: I wasn't very clear. I realize you have those top level tags already, but I was referring to further group articles that "flow" into each other. That way you can have a "journey" without actually having one :)

Thanks for the feedback! Are you able to share any examples of where a different tag would work better?

Just a quick thought example would be something like:

Article Title Tagged: Beginner, JavaScript, Variables

So in this example the user knowns that it's a beginner set > focused on JavaScript > specific to variables

Maybe oversimplistic, but it's just a concept.

sorry I didn't see your replies sooner, thanks for taking the time to respond.

As the other response said, it's about not knowing where to begin. The nephew I had in mind is a complete newb, if he hit this site he'd be lost immediately because all the articles assume prior knowledge - except, presumably, the earliest articles in the beginner tag.

It may be that some specific navigation is needed for these beginners; but at the current scale it may not need even code, but simply an article that is 'New reader? Start here!', which goes on to describe places readers at various levels might start reading the site. "If you know a little programming in another language but want to learn Javascript, try here!..." etc.

However, as you scale up, readers will be thrown by articles in other topics appearing 'next' in their reading material, simply because that's when it was written. Having chosen a tag, that should be sticky for navigation. It turns out that all the 'Beginner' articles were written in sequence so they're fine; but you can see the issue starting from https://www.codetips.co.uk/javascript-introduction/ and clicking 'next' from the perspective of someone who clicked into the 'Javascript' tags? Or if you add more Beginner articles later, they would no longer be in sequence.

Anyway, I hope my criticism has been constructive and wish you all the best in helping new programmers...I've a big family-there's an almost inexhaustible supply of nephews&nieces getting to the age I'd like them to read this ;)

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