Show HN: Workouts – Learn by doing real developer projects
real.dev
real.dev
[1] https://www.freecodecamp.org
[2] https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn/front-end-libraries/front...
I wouldn't pay money to learn web or mobile technologies from a site that didn't display well on mobile.
BTW why is there )} at the end of every project description? Looks more like a bug than like a design feature.
As for examples, we do have some examples of separate tasks (non projects) in the tasks page, that should explain how things work really well.
For example:
The client wants to run a calculator on their intranet, to avoid staff searching for dodgy calculators on Google. A lot of the ones they find are on dangerous, script-laden websites. Some of the calculators even give wrong results.
* The client really likes Apple design, so wants the calculator to look identical to the macOS one.
* They want all the results to load client side, with no calculation done on the server.
* Staff do a wide range of calculations, but they're all using basic arithmetic.
* The largest numbers the calculator has to deal with are in the low millions.
* Staff machines are all fairly up to date, with the latest browsers (typically Safari or Edge), but they're not very powerful. They don't use phones or tablets to access the intranet.
* One of the users is partially-sighted, another is colourblind, and another suffers from restricted movement in his hand. As such, accessibility is really important for this calculator.
And so on...
However, as others have said I'd need to see what I'm getting for the price. Particularly I'm interested in how the spec is laid out, and how the solution is laid out... From university I learned there's an art to building a pset where you give enough pointers but do not hold the student's hand's too much and that's what I'd be looking for - the right level of challenge, in a nutshell.
Maybe you should give out a project for free, or create a sample or similar...
Sounds like a good idea to provide a free trial. But I also want to make sure that people are actually interested in paying.
What specifically do you mean, by "how the spec is laid out, and how the solution is laid out"? I guess I understand the spec part, but what about the solution?
The from-university statement, so true, it's an art. We're trying to explore to find the perfect balance :)
I did notice that there is not many platforms that support fullstack projects. A lot of it is simple bitesized function/method exercises (LeetCode, HackerRank, CodeSignal, etc.) and don't encompass building applications from spec.
There is definitely some resistance here on HN about pricing, but I wouldn't worry about it. There are plenty of people who pay $$$ for courses (Udemy, CodeCademy, PluralSight) so the market is there. If each workout provides at least about 1-2 hours of content, then the price is in-line, if not a bargain, compared some Udemy courses around the same length.
For what it's worth, while I understand that your business model is based around finder fees, there is an extreme amount of value from building a solid platform that can handle interactive fullstack courses like what you have so far. There is serious acquisition or licensing/support potential (enterprise onboarding) if this platform grows the correct feature set.
> Can I share my code?
> We strongly recommend against sharing your code publicly. It will ruin the fun for everyone.
s/the fun for everyone/our business model/ ?
Once people catch on that solving these problems can lead to landing actual jobs, there's a certain kind of person who will share complete solutions, either widely or with some in-group they're in.
Once that happens, the companies you're partnering with will (okay, "might") start noticing quality issues with the candidates you're sourcing.
I don't have an answer to this problem. I don't understand the mind of the kind of person who shares interview problem solutions.
On the job seeking perspective, what you said is right. Typically what people do is signing an NDA, but even with that, the question/solution still sometimes leak on the Internet.
On the learning scenario, it's sorta true, but mostly sharing the solution would ruin the motivation, at least for me personally. If I know there's a solution sitting there, I wouldn't be interested in repeating it again.
I know it's sorta silly... But my mind works best when I only focus on the problem, and how to solve it. As long as I know there's a solution, I couldn't stop myself looking at it whenever I was stuck at any tiny bit.
Right below "What is Real Dev?" or below the video, which would probably explains things, but which I'm not interested in watching.
The three paragraphs below only give a rough idea that has to be pieced together.
The homepage is actually sorta old. I'll update it.
> That said I don’t often get asked for source code during interviews these days, so probably the ability to host the minified code for a demo would be enough.
I'm a little bit confused about this piece. Are you suggesting we host the minified code on our site + the demo? Because in the first part, I thought you wouldn't want that because employer should see this as a tutorial thing if they see anything on a third party website other than your own website?
I'm building a really in-depth fullstack project at the moment that I can use as a both a showcase and a playground for exploring how technologies fit in a real, production-grade application.
It's definitely very valuable to be able to demonstrate you can do something that's very complete.
The thing I like about the approach is that it functions like an ecosystem of different projects, so it becomes much more worthwhile investing in finding more ways to extend it. If I want to learn a new backend technology I have a completely working front-end ready to go. If I want to learn a new type of database, I've got a front end, business logic and repositories all done, I just need to figure out the data access and hosting the db. If I want to learn how to do Multi-Region Active-Active deployment I've got a full application I can adapt to that. Doing each of these projects unlocks the ability and worthwhileness of doing more.
I've just started this approach this year but I wish I did it so much sooner.
We were originally thinking since you need a computer to actually do the project, so didn't bother making the mobile version at the beginning.
First thing I'm greeted by is "Unlock for $9.99". Instantly off-putting.
Curious though how real world does it go? I've got a course I've paid for lined up to do as my next project after I'm done with my current one which is making a clone of the internet banking experience of the bank I use. That course is a full AWS Serverless project that assumes you've already got AWS Developer Cert level of knowledge and the course is about how to a make production grade application. Pretty excited to go through it.
The real-worldness of being taken through something that is realistically complete to a production quality level is something I find pretty compelling because it's something ordinary tutorials never give you. That's worth money.
But an interesting idea!
Or, Spend Money to become someone who Makes Money.
No charge, hang onto the 10-99
There is so much boring time in "doing real developer work"!
If you get time to invest, this is not how you want to invest it!
Now, let me be completely straight and honest, if you need exercises in react, react won't be your career.
Do you know how reactive stuff are implemented in js? Do you know how those are implemented in C?
Can you implement them yourself in both js and C?
If you can do it, a component like a calculator is trivial and you just need to adjust the syntax and jargon. If you can't, this exercises will just be exercises in memorization and shallow understanding.
What I am saying is to learn how to implement the underneath engine in low level languages, it is much more fun and productive.
Anyhow, your life, your time! After all I am just a stranger on the internet.
Not all people are interested/capable of learning how it works underneath. There're like, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of React developers in the world, very few of them understand how React really works underneath.
This is actually one of the goals that React was invented and popularized inside Facebook. It's just sooo easy to pick up and start building.
That being said, for our product, it's not only about React and its basics. We can totally create a workout project for React internals. That depends on what you guys need :) We started with these two projects because it seems a common useful and popular thing, and we're able to do them ourselves.
What's your thoughts on Kaggle? Is it similar?
Also it would be nice to see how to accomplish the same task across different stacks and languages.