What I want to see from a Learn To Code tutorial as a non-techie | Hacker News Reader

What I want to see from a Learn To Code tutorial as a non-techie

16 pointsbuggythebug9 comments

My own faults aside, what I dislike about every "Learn to code" website is that they always show you the tools but never show you how to put them together.

Examples: "Oh this is HTML now build a website!" Bullshit. I want you to show me a full-fledged yet minimalist website, with a "front end" and a "back end" and "databases" and "plugins" yada yada that shows how everything works together - THEN I will know how to build a website.

Python: show me a full fledged yet minimalist program that shows every aspect of python and how they work together THEN I will know how to build something

All these tutorials show you the tools then expect you to build a house on your own

I would pay a lot if something could actually teach me.

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I would go one step further. Do not even bring in Python yet. Let's first determine the objectives. Do you want to learn how to write code generally or do you want to learn how to write code for say Web Development ? Mostly, it is web development (lower barrier to entry compared to say writing Compiler code etc).

So to teach web development, DO NOT start teaching me a Framework. Don't teach me React please. Don't teach me Vue. Teach me how the web works first. Teach me the basics. Show me when you open a browser and type a website URL, what happens behind the scenes at a high level (domain->DNS lookup etc). Teach me what is a "client" and what is a "server" before you tell me to do req.send('/api/getsomeshit') or whatever. I have no clue what that means. Teach me SQL before you tell me to run "User.save()".

I have interviewed so many entry level web developers who somehow took a bootcamp or tried to do a "github project" and they cannot explain how an HTML Form submission works. But they surely know how to send a GET request in React and process it in express/nodejs.

I am almost tempted to start a open source free wiki on how to learn web development properly (i..e the basics first, the WHY first).

As someone interested in Front End, and to some extent also Backend so in that regard, full stack, please do start a wiki.

Yesss, please do this!

This feels like a rant more than anything.

Genuine resources: CS50 and CS50web are project based learning with problem sets at the end of each topic to help you figure out 'how to put things together'

https://www.freecodecamp.org/ is problem based and project based. Their Youtube also has full courses that are HOURS long that show you how to put things together.

https://www.youtube.com/c/TraversyMedia/videos has a bunch of hours long videos that show you a whirlwind tour of different stacks. He does go pretty fast so I tend to do a lot of pausing and rewinding but the content there is great although it generally just shows the HOW with less academic explanations of the WHY.

After a certain point you HAVE to get out of the browser and start writing code on your own machine in an IDE and work with FILES in your OS's file system to figure out how to set up a project, how to run it, how to debug it, how to build it etc.

That is the single biggest issue these websites like codecademy present - turning coding into neat quizzes to abstract having to deal with project set up on your own machine.

> Examples: "Oh this is HTML now build a website!" Bullshit. I want you to show me a full-fledged yet minimalist website, with a "front end" and a "back end" and "databases" and "plugins" yada yada that shows how everything works together - THEN I will know how to build a website.

Michael Hartl's rails tutorial[1] is like that.

[1]: https://www.railstutorial.org/

I know where you're coming from. It was incredibly frustrating trying to learn how to code when the only options were "super zoomed in view of how to use this one tool in this one specific use case" or "Here's how to build an ungodly complex system that assumes you already have industry knowledge".

The thing that really made the info from the tutorials stick was having a goal in mind. For me, I saw Sentdex's self driving car in GTA:V (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks4MPfMq8aQ) and knew that I just HAD to do something similar. In it he mentioned that I should have some OpenCV experience. Well I didn't have that, so I went to go learn how to program in python (the language he was using). It took me like a year and a half of casually learning how to program on the side, but I eventually got there because I had that single, easily definable, clear goal in mind the whole time.

I ran into similar problems as you from many teachers both online and off. The crux of the issue seems to be that many good programmers have forgotten just how much a beginner doesn't know, and just how much context needs to be given as to why certain design decisions are made.

If you are willing to pay, and "a lot" have you consider posting an offer, to get somebody who actually does work in the field to teach you privately?

I assume you can get somebody willing to do that for some money (I certainly would -- as I did). I think you would need 10 to 20 2Hs sessions or so, to get started.

My field of expertise is not web-development right now... but you could find somebody, for sure. Maybe even posting the question here: who would be able to teach me these topics "....." for $$/Hs ?

I mean there's resources that approach it that way. I can recommend CS50 - they have a web development course that follows up the main CS50 course, and shows exactly what you're describing about the different components fitting together. Another great resources is https://fullstackopen.com/en/ which does the same thing but maybe isn't quite as beginner friendly as CS50.

This is so true!

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