Fireship – Learn to Code Faster | Hacker News Reader

Fireship – Learn to Code Faster

fireship.io

335 pointsWallyFunk139 comments

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HN predictably tearing him apart for his pricing and marketing.

If you haven't heard of fireship, do this instead of complaining about his prices:

1. Watch a few videos on his YouTube for free (https://m.youtube.com/c/fireship)

2. If you enjoy it, subscribe/watch more.

3. If you really like it and want to take his courses then pay for a membership.

This guy can get information on a new topic into my brain faster than anyone on YouTube, while keeping me entertained and enjoying every minute of it. His code report videos are so entertaining (but less technical) that my non programmer wife likes to watch them.

I'm glad he can make a living at this. He's put thousands of hours of labor into producing fantastic content for free. I was happy to pay a fraction of a days pay to buy a lifetime membership to support his years of work, but if you don't like it don't buy it.

High quality technical content is important to me, and I'm thankful whenever those creators find a way to eat without being totally subservient to google's algorithms.

Looks like he actually puts effort into his videos. I am so sick of YouTube normies who literally just steal others content and add their 'reactions' to it with a click bait title. It's not 'fair use' in my opinion. They are just stealing other's work because they're too mediocre to do anything original themselves. Yet these very same people end up making tons of money on YouTube. Going to guess none of that goes back to the people whose content they steal. It can also be complicated if they're doing stuff like streaming video games because ultimately they don't own any of the game's assets. So are they really entitled to make money from that or not? I think it's an interesting question.

Mr beast has talked about this, and it almost always is beneficial for the person who's content is getting "stolen". You aren't losing views, you are gaining exposure. Your channel grows because of this, not shrinks.

I haven't seen that happening to tech/tutorial channels. Most of the categories where such kind of drama happens aren't worth watching on the first place.

I'll second the quality of his videos. I'm usually not a fan of stuff like that, because they tend to be not very precise, but he knows his stuff, and is able to compress it in a very short amount of time. Part of it is infotainement, but it's probably the best I've seen.

I'm glad to have found his youtube channel. But like mentioned elsewhere his 'sell' was that project oriented was better for teaching than videos but you can't actually try anything before you buy even though it says 'start free'.

I discovered Fireship and Jack Herrington[1][2] only last month.

I normally never subscribe to channels on Youtube but these 2 are so good for both getting a clear explanation on what you want to learn and keeping up-to-date with what's to come.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/@jherr

[2]: https://www.jackherrington.com/

Jack puts out great content on react and typescript at a level much more aligned with what people might want to know in their day jobs using react.

I came across Fireship on YouTube about a year ago. In my opinion, he is by far one of the better dev-centric YouTubers out there. Unlike the typical dev screencasts that are dry and boring, his videos are entertaining, informative, and succinct.

The primary reason I subscribed to his Pro lifetime membership was to support him as a content creator. However, after consuming several of his full-access courses, I enjoyed and found real value in his matter of fact, rapid-paced delivery of content.

Jack, if you’re reading this - please don’t let the negative comments here discourage you. Many of us are fans, and know that we support what you’re doing for the dev community.

I agree with you completely and I specifically want to complement his graphics design and editing skills in his videos.

IMO, Every YouTuber should also host their content on their website instead if relying upon conformist algorithms for Ads & Scammy sponsors; I've seen neither on Fireship videos, Besides he offers more value through his website.

Fireship person, More power to you as a fellow indie; Don't pay much attention to those who would praise a $999 monitor stand from a Trillion $ company but ask why an indie charges $30 for a living.

I haven't used the Fireship site or any of their courses but I do really enjoy their YouTube channel. Especially the XYZ in 100s is a nice bite-sized introduction to some things you might have never heard of. https://www.youtube.com/@Fireship

100% agree about the YouTube Channel. It's especially useful for being a self-taught programmer trying to decide between frameworks, other development options, etc. Also I just watched their video from a couple days ago, "Things are gonna get weird in 2023" about how tech trends will play out next year, and it's both on point and hilarious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v_TEnpqHXE

Thanks, that video was so "to the point" and respected the viewers time. I found I didn't even have to speed it up with Video Speed Controller because it was already sped up!!!

Subscribed!

For the first time I had to slow a video down! But then I put it back to normal after I got a hold of his flow.

I concur, their yt channel of 100s video series is succinct.

Their videos are often the best introduction to frameworks, technologies or concepts. I'm consistently surprised how well that channel manages to pack quite technical topics.

+1 for the YouTube channel. The Code Report is a fun watch as well.

i find it interesting that the videos always go over 1min 40 seconds but it really doesnt matter and nobody ever has a problem with the length of the videos. the "100s" is a promise that you take directionally but not literally. its an interesting gimmick that more people should apply in other domains.

Dollar Store comes to mind

To be honest I see this new trend of squishing down longform information (such as books, courses etc) into short tidbits with the promise of «infusing you with information» a detriment to learning. There is a huge difference between being told something by e.g reading a sentence summarizing a point, in comparison to reading the longer form. This is because a big part of what is learning, or grokking rather, is that you ponder and think about the information you just received in context with something else. You need to simulate and build a mental model using the information as a jumping off point. Thats where longer form of content such as a «slow» book is beneficial. It might be slow and repeating itself, but in doing so it gives you the chance to actually understand what is being presented to you. These short summaries are giving you non of that, unless you actually stop and ponder every single sentence, and at that point you might as well be consuming the longer form since it will help you in that aspect.

I honestly believe we’re currently being too focused on productivity hacks, so we’re not seeing the forest for the trees. You reading and remembering a line from a book is not the same as you understanding that line, and in this example where they state they are giving you a 60 minute lesson in 5 minutes - how much understanding are you actually left with at the end?

Same could be said about books when they were invented. Books allow you to read whatever you need at any time instead of memorizing the information. You don’t get to store as much information if you read books. Remembering things will be a thing of the past. Those who memorize things are able to slowly over time form a better understanding. And so on …

I'm not sure if I agree. I think there is a fundamental difference in having an understanding (mental model) of a topic, and remembering a piece of information. The information is of course useful when building these mental models and when being used in context of a mental model. I do agree with you though that there is less need to recall specific information, but you still need to know _when_ you should look for some information that you don't currently have.

Mostly books down to what works for you. I’m glad you like books. I can’t get myself to get through them. Shorter form is my jam.

At the end of the day, your approach is the Yang to my approach.

I think it’s important to recognize that there are multiple learning styles and not everyone goes through the same steps or finds value in the same places.

I think this is highly project and phase dependent as well, and sometimes the most valuable resource is a resource that can explain the essence of a thing in minutes thereby allowing you to make a decision about whether or not spending more time on the subject is warranted.

Thank you for this comment. While I see opdahl's point and agree that these summaries do not provide the same level of understanding as working through an in-depth book, I see them as the perfect fit for me.

I am essentially paid to know a wide variety of possibilities to solve a problem and then narrow down on some of them.

One of the most helpful things for me is quick and concise introductions to a topic that give me some outlines and enough terms to google to rapid-fire through hundreds of criterias on why something could or could not be a good fit for the problem at hand.

The worst slowdowns in this process are topics for which only lengthy books/docs are available. Don't get me wrong, I need those to learn more about the topic later but they often make it hard to get an easy overview.

Yes there are multiple learning styles, but two fundamental truths about learning are almost universal:

    * Retention requires repetition
    * Understanding requires interaction

That's one of the reasons why learning by reading is so powerful: Reading is an active involvement, it's an interaction.

Videos CAN deliver that, but it's a lot harder, because a video is not something I conciously need to interact with; I press play and it plays, whether my mind wanders to something else or no.

Videos can deliver repetition, but the format in which social media present them (with the next clickbait always only a small flick of the cursor way) doesn't exactly help.

IMHO, Videos can excel at explaining topics with laser focus on a small, complex topic, that is then explained in detail with multiple examples. When trying to teach broad topics reading wins out most of the time.

I generally agree with this comment. I think the things I'd highlight are:

1) Retention is not always needed. If my primary goal is to gain cursory knowledge of the top 5 frontend frameworks so I can decide which one I'll sink the necessary time into so I can retain/understand it, the short format can be fine (and highly desirable). I'll follow it up with a proper deep dive.

2) Understanding of core subjects may have already been established by decades of experience, and the video is just communicating what is possible, or the delta between Tech A and Tech B.

I think it boils down to: each format has a time and a place. I do think that trying to learn the depths of a completely new subject by watching 5 minute hyper-distilled overviews is not going to go well.

But that's not why I find these videos useful, personally.

> see this new trend of squishing down longform information (such as books, courses etc) into short tidbits with the promise of «infusing you with information»

I see a general decline of attention spans around me and I wouldn't be surprised if more learning content takes this route.

There is also something to be said about the fact the I often remember things I saw in edu TikTok more than things I read in a book because it's presented in a more engaging and visual manner. So, I assume it actually helps some people learn easier and lowers the "activation energy" threshold to get started.

It already has. I'm a pre-2k zoomer and I remember how youtube used to be called "untrustworthy" as a source of information. Heck, even Wikipedia. And now everyone and their grandmother swears by youtube as a decent information source while refusing to understand WHY people upload videos on the platform.

Middle-school (and higher) students can't learn exclusively from books any longer. They need interactive engagement with a person (read: celebrity) on the internet. Children are reading less overall, and any parent that tries otherwise has to first push against the "personal portable tech is integral" wall (which was absent only a decade and half ago).

Take what I'll write next with a spoonful of salt: I think the main culprit for the decline of attention spans is our poor internet browsing hygiene.

When you see social media platforms competing for our attention using clickbait titles, likes and retweets to give us the social component satisfaction that someone out there found what we had to share worth reading, etc. we're reaching a point where if content cannot, at the very least, match the engagement rate then it's not worth consuming.

It's a judgement call on the quality of information but based on how it's presented and not based on the value of the information itself. That's how we end up using the allure of gamification to engage people doing things that should be engaging in their own. Examples are having a tacked on achievement system that gives you a trophy in a video game, or even in the Fireship learning platform.

Well, I actually like the video format not for really learning but to discover new things.

For example, as a developer, I loathe coding tutorials in video and I prefer reading books / documentation on the topic.

But for everything that I’m just curious about (which is, science in general), the video format is really nice because I’m not going to invest my time in reading physics books. So instead of watching TV shows, I watch science videos on YouTube.

I know it’s pure entertainment but if I’m honest, I must say learned a lot of useful things that I can use on a daily basis.

Like, understanding the basics of thermodynamics is in fact really useful to heat your home or to correctly cook things. I know I’ll never be an expert in any domain with YouTube videos but they give me more than just watching dumb things.

Short attention spans seems problematic, but we live in an era where shrinking the things we don't know we know is better than better memorizing the things we know. Search has made this possible and I predict this trend will increase with AI like ChatGPT.

Learning git is the cheapest way to get faster at coding. First get a good grasp of command-line git and of the git workflow (dirty working directory -> staged index -> commit code), and then use git diff to see how your code changes from one commit to the next (or between the staged index and the previous commit, or just looking at one file, etc.)

If you get your git diffs from one commit to the next to start looking concise and clear, maybe one working function added per commit, one block, one small class etc,, then you can start coding pretty quickly, because you're adding in discrete chunks, testing as you go, and you don't get lost trying to do too much at once, you can quickly switch back to the latest working version, debuggging is much faster, etc.

VS Code makes visualizing diffs extremely easy. You can also select specific lines and commit them as you want.

This enables a workflow I love to use for smaller PRs where I just do all the work without making any commits and then at the end of it all I walk through my changes and group/organize the changes however makes the most sense

I do this too, although I definitely make commits along the way. Then at the end I rebase and batch things up. My in progress commits are usually just things like "works here" or whatever. I truly love having git backing me up as I play with code - it's a superpower that basically no other field has access to. (imagine if you could drop a commit before you make that circular saw cut and revert when it went off, or revert the splotch of paint you got on the ceiling! )

The mindset has even become part of how I play Factorio, I have dozens of save files like "pre big train refactor" and similar.

> You can also select specific lines and commit them as you want.

You can do that on the command line as well;

    git add -p

So, I click on "start here", get to three pages of promises of greatness and then - while I still don't have a clue what this thing really is - I get asked to sign up.

Err, no, thank you.

I lost interest with: "You can't learn to code by watching videos", "Fireship is all about project-based learning. I create short highly-focused videos that make learning to code addicting."

I can't take anyone seriously when they contradict themselves so quickly.

It might have been a self-deprecating joke, since they make lots of videos about coding

I think with "project-based learning", they mean one will create one's own coding projects? Learning by doing, and videos. (Personally I prefer reading)

I have nothing to do with web development but the YouTube channel fireship is great. Funny and informative.

Maybe it is just because I learned to code back when people learned from books (sometimes even textbooks!), but I think the fastest way to learn to code is to get one good book on whatever language you want to use, and just start coding. Videos and tutorials are so low bandwidth, hours of videos and tutorials == the intro chapter to a book. If anything videos are eating the time you could spend reading and coding.

My experience was “read the book and do exercises until I feel a false sense of confidence. Then just go do stuff and use the rest of the book as a reference.”

What was most important to me was to make sure I didn’t burn out and get bored. It was important to get to a fun, captivating project asap.

ah, interesting, what projects do you normally do? i really like this approach but struggle to find a good starting project... I always pivot bewteen too simple and too complex

I always gravitate towards projects that involve reading in tab delimited data, doing some sort of transformations (crud) or analytics, and writing the results back. You then quickly learn data IO, Data structures, looping, threading (big data) etc etc.

Agree with this. Lately I've been watching more youtube videos about programming than usual, but I still find they take so long to get anywhere. The 5 to 10 minutes you spend watching one could almost always be spent reading an article or a chapter of a book on the same topic and getting much more information out of it. And it turns into practice for reading documentation about things that have no videos about them, which is its own skill.

Yes to reading documentation - there seems to be a trend on twitter these days of "I've been using this language/library for years and I just learned you could do X!!!". Really, you haven't RTFM on the tools you use daily to make your living?

I've also found reading the source for libraries you use and stepping through with a debugger is really the best way to understand them. This is probably how most people learn their in house code at work. Just treat the whole stack like in house code (within reason). And reading code is also a fabulous skill to hone.

Reminds me of a friend of mine at university who started to shout "YES I'M A FUCKING GENIUS" when he found out there was a split() function for strings.

But university… we were all noobs back then :D

I learned C++ from a book and I learned JS from a video course. An average book > an average video course, but a good video course > a good book.

One of the best intro to inner workings of JS : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o8hhJPK0m0&list=PLAwxTw4SYa...

sadly udacity is hell bent on removing all quality content off their website so get it while it's on youtube.

Programming books are a start, but they hardly ever mention stat(), inodes, sockets, named pipes, the fact that kernel calls are extremely slow, deadlocks, data structures…

Well, that just depends on the programming book? If you pick up TLPI it will talk about stat and inodes. Pick up a book on perf, it will talk about syscall overhead, etc

$30 /month feels like a lot to me. It reminds me of leetcode where I would actually consider paying for the service but the price is just so high I can't justify it for how little time I would spend with it. Maybe the price makes sense if you're going through every course on the site, but I'm really only interested in one or two so it just doesn't make sense for me. I'll just learn from other sources.

Those prices are ridiculous but I guess they have optimized it and figured it's the best option.

You think $30 a month is ridiculous?

-Digianarchist

The worth and value of something is all relative to every each person.

Yes.

Programmers:

> "Why does BigTech keep tracking me!"

> "If you're not the customer, you're the product!"

> "Why is the internet getting monopolized by a few media empires owned by a few billionaires!"

Small indie developer: "hey guys I put a massive amount of work into this project, how about you just act like a customer and pay me a small amount of money".

> "Ahhh this is highway robbery! $30 is outrageously overpriced!"

People are insanely cheap with software, even professional software developers. It's an attitude that's shifting but very slowly. The VC backed ad-economy has anchored everyone's expectation that anything above $0 is somehow a ripoff.

The end result is we all get tracked, our data monetized, and the best job opportunities are mostly obeying the rules of a tiny number of elite overlords who can finance "free" products.

Also, people won't bat an eye at paying $40k, $50k, or $60k for 1 year at a university even though you'd probably learn more programming from doing Fireship's classes then a lot of undergrad CS semesters.

It has more to do with psychological anchoring than any sort of economic rationality.

I think there are different groups of people for each one of those cases and lumping them all together as programmers is a bit of a generalization. I get your sentiment that the cases conflict, but I don't think it's the same person each time holding that view.

I could see people who are against major corporations being for paying inde groups a premium for less than perfect service, just as people who are against Microsoft and Apple will tolerate less than ideal user conditions in Linux.

What if (Arch) Linux is already the ideal user condition.

Hypothetically, of course.

Oh it is. The other users are just brainwashed /s

Big fan of pop os personally.

The problem is that I do not have enough disposable income to give $30 to everyone.

The 60k for college is an investment in the future, but more importantly it’s not my money I’m spending, and there’s no replacement for that piece of paper.

Sure there is: evidence of competency. Many people will hire you if you can demonstrate you actually know what you're doing, which a site like Fireship (presumably) can help you to learn.

This fallacy needs to die. It's why many who work in jobs are highly unqualified (they're hired for credentials/connections, not competency).

The problem is; one needs to get to the point in the hiring process where one gets the chance to demonstrate competence. Before that point, all one has going is what's in the job application. Degrees and work experience can be put in there and have a good chance to be acknowledged by whoever does the hiring.

> The problem is; one needs to get to the point in the hiring process where one gets the chance to demonstrate competence.

If you follow the same path as everyone else, yes. A "hack" of sorts I've done for this is to find things to improve at a place you want to work, front-load the cost of improving them via a small demo/report, and then reach out to someone in the company who'd find it valuable and start building a relationship. In a lot of cases, you end up getting plugged in directly and can skip the resume roulette.

There's a ton of wisdom in this quote that I picked up from Derek Sivers via his music teacher, Kimo Williams: "the standard pace is for chumps." There's always a backdoor to get what you want, you just have to be more creative than the other people to find it.

What about backend- reliability-, database-engineering or any other positions, where in order to propose an improvement, one would need knowledge about the companies internal systems, which isn't available from the outside?

At that point, your best bet is to build prototypes/demos of what you're capable of and show data on improvements you achieved for others. The way I'd think about it—regardless of position—is to do the thing that others are not doing (or aren't willing to do).

If everybody is sending a resume through the same channel but you're showing up with a working demo and reaching out directly to people in the company, you stand out. I've gotten gigs by just sending a thank you to people who taught me something indirectly through a blog post or interview.

You have to be human. It's not a process to automate or "game." Just be real with people and you'll be surprised how much easier things get. Very few people do that (especially in a genuine way) and the people who pull the levers know the difference between someone who's authentic and someone who's full of shit.

What an over the top comment.

This is about a subscription for learning. Not a subscription for software. This also has no relation to “tracking”.

I will happily be not using any of his/her resources, even if they are free. Thanks very much.

I paid about 60USD per semester of college, by the way. Where’s your God now?

> Also, people won't bat an eye at paying $40k, $50k, or $60k for 1 year at a university

I'm European, I paid 500 euros per year, and that included laboratories and everything.

> It has more to do with psychological anchoring than any sort of economic rationality.

I really don't understand your argument here. Just because you think it's a fair price doesn't mean it's a good price for me.

FYI I used to spend 40/50$ per hour of algo and ds lessons in the past, or I pay 20$ for french classes and a similar price for chess lessons, all of those over zoom/teams/meets.

I'm not against paying for education, but I don't see the value of a 30$/month membership to do these courses.

> I'm European, I paid 500 euros per year, and that included laboratories and everything.

Your education was heavily subsidized by the state. The government version of $0 (500 euro/yr) cost supported by ad revenue (taxpayers).

> Also, people won't bat an eye at paying $40k, $50k, or $60k for 1 year at a university even though you'd probably learn more programming from doing Fireship's classes then a lot of undergrad CS semesters.

If you go to university to “learn programming” you’re doing it wrong.

Absolutely not. If you can learn to build even a basic CRUD app, you can likely make way, way more than the $30 invested.

Absurd that this even a complaint.

People go to leetcode when they’re preparing for interviews, but the site has no long term retention IMHO.

Yep. I always say “oh, I’ll keep my leet code skills up!” But I can’t for the life of me reason that it’s a better investment actually building things and by the end of the day I’m too burned out.

Lol, it’s hilarious how decent programmers can very feasibly make 300k+ a year, but somehow, a course that’s selling point is to make you more decent is too expensive at $30 a month. That’s literally skipping a single night of eating out.

If you’re point is that you can’t trust the program to deliver, that’s valid, but make sure to make the judgement call AFTER you check out their free content first.

Honestly? I’d argue that they should be charging more. The people who are truly interested in investing in long term learning generally have a higher willingness to pay, while everyone else will balk at anything that isn’t free.

I do technically work as a programmer but I make far less than 300k and I'm generally happy with where I am. I mostly program as a hobby so that's the perspective I was coming from. I can see why they would charge more if this is meant as a professional skills development service where people expect to get returns for their time and money spent. I just thought it would be cool to learn react so I can make hobby sites easier and that's not worth $30 to me.

Would I be interested in learning about programming from a website that offers to learn me more by

> I built this one-of-a-kind learning platform to give you dopamine hits like XP and meme prizes for every little accomplishment

if I already made 300K a year? (Ridiculous, by the way.) No, I would not. At least I would hope that I would be more serious and dedicated.

> it’s hilarious how decent programmers can very feasibly make 300k+ a year

It’s hilarious that you think programmers who make 300k+ a year need resources such as this one.

Leetcode's problem is that the free option is already really good. The premium version's offering just isn't compelling. Official solutions while nice are often not as helpful as the community submitted solutions. Getting access to more interview questions also isn't a selling point given how many questions are already on the site for free.

The best hackers I know are all super fast. That is the one quality that is common. They can create huge amounts of business value in a very short time by using fewer but better abstractions.

They are also super terse!

They do the most amount of work -- with the least amount of code!

(Compare to long-winded political speeches where a lot is said -- but very little is actually accomplished! <g>)

Correct

maintable = 1/trse;

Out of curiosity- you're stating that more terse means less maintainable? Code golf and "cleverness" are hard to maintain, but more verbose does not mean something is more maintainable. Unless it's entirely boilerplate, more verbose code seems to generally be more complex than necessary

It's hard to tell what I meant as much time has past.

I think I was responding to [The best hackers I know] are also super terse!

I've spent time in an aggressively terse 1980s/90s codebase (based on VA Fileman, example is [0]). Between single letter variable names and syntax abbreviations, and global scope assumed vars, it was like working in minified JQuery. Aside from NextStep/iOS methodDeclarationsThatTakeAllEightyCharactersBecauseTheyAreIdeDriven, I've never seen a codebase that was too verbose. I think they are few and far between because most people are too lazy to be really verbose.

The best code maintains a close approximation to the mind of a reasonably educated programmer, a mental model of the intent and purpose of the code and what the compiler (or jit, or whatever) can understand. Too terse is too closely fitted to one specific person's mental model.

0. https://www.hardhats.org/fileman/pm/cla_frm.htm

Easier debug!

What sound does make a bug that can't be read by a human?

feature, feature, feature

30$ a month is a ton to spend compared to something free like the Odin project.

https://www.theodinproject.com/

If you charged 10$ for it I would off already signed up. I actually want to learn front end React

I still wouldn't sign up because after clicking to get started it asked me to sign in before even letting me try it out. Just a bunch of meme graphics.

> You can’t learn to write code by watching videos

> Solution: I made a bunch of (better?) videos that teach you how to code.

I’m not sure I understand this logic.

Learned a lot from him in my super early days. Sometimes can teach whole topics, others it can give you the right amount of knowledge to search it and study it your self. Keep going Jeff

wtf "You can't learn to code by watching videos" -> "Solution (..) I create short highly-focused videos that make learning to code addicting." hard pass

The landing page says every course starts free but it's only intro "overview" videos I can watch. None of the actual content can be seen before paying.

I had the same experience. I was disappointed.

They also talk about how their "project-based" learning is better than video learning, but it doesn't provide any examples of that. All I can see without registering are sample video lessons. Obviously they don't need to provide everything for free but they do need to prove to potential customers that their approach is better.

Exactly. I wanted to sample what they were 'selling' and they didn't offer that.

It's basically a lie. You don't actually get to sample the course at all!

I see sample course content:

https://fireship.io/courses/git/basics-init/

I don’t know why hyperskill.org is not getting any love on HN, zero videos, byte sized lessons to the point - followed by questions and assignment. Also mini projects at every 10 or so lessons which eventually makes up final project and their learning map is really awesome which maps topics to know before proceeding , and integration with JetBrains IDE is nice so you can submit projects or questions directly.

The Fireship videos on YouTube are excellent, entertaining and informative. I presume the videos are scripted - one of the reasons the videos are concise and no filler.

I haven't tried the Fireship courses, but I'm intrigued which teaching approaches preferred by developers: video, text, interactive exercises, book - a combination?

For me, I have found video instruction is massively varied. Although instructors may be familiar with a subject, some are not good at teaching. The best instructors understand their subject but also explain their subject clearly. Also, overly long videos can make watching video a chore. But there are always exceptions (e.g. Harvard online CS50?).

I currently believe that anyone who avoids books, avoids reading, and just wants videos, can't get good at software.

A similar example?: Can you get good at writing by looking at videos, but not reading anything. Or, get good at running, by looking at videos but not actually running? -- Coding is mostly reading and if one doesn't liked that...

But yes sure, some concepts maybe can be nicely explained in videos. It'd be a small % of all one needs to learn I think.

Think about Code Complete, the book. How long would a video have to be, to cover the stuff in the book.

Use multi-modal learning. Videos, tutorials, projects, ChatGPT. I think it's worth watching a video before diving into a project if you are very new to what you're learning. ChatGPT is a great new way to learn as well.

"You can't learn to code by watching videos" -- this is 100% false

"I create short highly-focused videos" -- a bit contradictory, no? Sure it's "project based" but so are many other free courses

I think you can't learn to code *just* by watching videos. Videos can be a start, but you need practice. You can't learn to be a carpenter by watching videos either, but videos can be a great way to get started.

Fireship is a great jumping off point for programming. For example, I recently started learning Rust, and their "in 100s" video on it really helped me to get the basics. However, the best way to learn to code is still just to do it. It's much easier to build something you think would be cool, and use the vast amount of free information available on the internet, as opposed to sitting through courses that cost >$300 yearly.

I really like Fireship. I don’t think I’m in the market for a sub-based learning product but his YouTube videos are always incredible

I tried to make a Web course for a friend, like a super duper crash course. Turns out it's a ton of fucking effort and gets outdated fairly quickly.

The best system would be having mini Web projects with automatic testing based. So they can program an actual website, whist being marked for actually doing it.

However, that's way too much effort for a one time thing.

That's what freecodecamp does. I've done a couple of their courses and really liked the user experience. Never see it mentioned on hn interestingly enough

Love the landing page! The mouse-over gifs are a very nice touch :)

In my oppinion, fireship videos are of the hihgest quality out there. I really enjoy every single one of them.

Best of luck monetizing it in any way possible. Well deserved.

imo, these videos are not of much help. books, docs and articles. that's what teaches me. spikes, experiments i do to apply what i learnt. navigating between sites, docs, stackoverflow. videos like these are not that help, but which are and are free to watch have less than 1k views. i might be biased and wrong, but these waste time.

i am learning rust by reading docs. and it's teaching me so much. i was very fascinated when it gave me a hint about monomorphization. i went a bit deep and it was such a fascinating subject. would a video like these give me a slight hint of something like this and even if they do, they won't cover it.

the issue with these is lets say theres new framework now you have to wait for this guy to upload. the ability to navigate the docs by yourself. that skill is quite important and these take that away. now you are dependent on this guy, these videos. somebody should have already done it.

idk that what i felt. navigating docs is such a vital skill. esp for me. i struggled, it felt daunting 2 years back. but now docs are my way to go. docs of any framework, technology. i do not feel uncomfortable. and still i try to write each letter by my hand. and only copy which i have already written, that too rarely, if so i already knew it needs to dry and i do it asap.

learning the techniques is essential, how to use a tool you can always visit it's manual, but sadly these teaches tools and not techniques...

> imo, these videos are not of much help

If these videos were truly not helpful, their YouTube channel wouldn’t have 1.7mil subscribers.

First time on YouTube? Do you also think GitHub stars matter, by any chance?

No.

For me it’s common sense to check your assumptions before making claims about someone’s work.

A 5 year old channel with 1.7mil subscribers, 200mil views, 500 highly upvoted videos with tens of thousands of comments of praise is a pretty strong signal.

It might not be useful for _you_, but doing a general statement that it’s not helpful and is waste of time is silly, illogical and shortsighted.

Everyone is different and have their own preference which medium to use to gain knowledge.

They do, unfortunately. We got customers granting engagements to the company with the most consultants with the most stars. What has the world even come to...

My fav YouTube channel! I didn’t even know about fireship.io, so thanks for linking this here on HN!

1. why should I code faster

2. it’s not true you need to actual code to learn coding

3. I’m really disappointed in the direction they going

Also GitHub is doing marketing with:“you’re code is not perfect use copilot.“

So code faster and then use copilot because we trust some data more which we didn’t even know the quality behind it.

I think they mean a faster way to learn coding, not learn to code faster. As for copilot - I like it - you can evaluate the quality of the results by reading the results. I nearly always edit the results a bit, but I still think it helps.

1. You should not learn to code "faster". You should learn to code well.

2. This site is about all sorts of JS frameworks like Node and Angular and React. No other languages nor even clean JS without any framework or web apps. So, limited value IMHO.

  - 1. I think it means to say "Learn to code well faster".
  - 2. Yes. if you're starting out with javascript, you're doomed. I'm pretty sure Dijkstra would have adapted his famous quote[0] to JS too.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/79997-it-is-practically-imp...

I subscribed to Fireship mostly because I am already gaining a lot from the videos they are posting (I believe it is work of a single guy).

Courses are excellent and provide value even for experienced people like me.

I've been watching Fireship for years and it has enhanced my JavaScript and CSS skills. With his easy to understand concepts and skills, I have entered a new world of knowledge.

Will there be a course for Rust eventually?

Fireship is the IanHubert of web dev

I haven’t checked it out but if the content on his website is anything like his videos on YouTube I’d never recommend it to anyone because of the sheer amount of misinformation he’s spreading, especially in his “X in 100 seconds” series

would be cool if they add rust

This thread has strong HN boomer vibes.

I read this as "Learn to <code faster>", instead of "<Learn to code> faster". Heck yeah I want to code faster!

Really? I was critical of it because the bottleneck is almost never coding speed for me. xD

There are broadly two aspects to my last couple of roles: infrastructure development and operational support. My infra development isn't speed-limited, but operational support involves a lot of quick back-of-the-envelope estimates of large datasets and/or one-off automation many invocations of commandline tools.

My infrastructure work is in C++ and Python, whereas I most often reach for jq, awk, tr, sort, uniq, comm, etc. for operational support tasks.

One word, my dude: Lisp.

Me too, must be the advent of code leaderboard envy! I'm reading the puzzle text, implementing a nice little solution, debugging it a little bit, and after a few tries get the correct result. Entering the result, happy that it has worked, and realizing, that there were 4000 people faster than me again.

It does not bother me too much, but it is humbling. And I guess speed puzzle solving is a skill that can be trained like any other, so given the context I too thought, that these a website to learn exactly that.

I'm nowhere near the leaderboards, but I have built some tools that do things like scaffold the files for a solution and automatically fetch the input file. I imagine the guys competing for the top spots are doing similar things, automating as much as possible.

Another thing is having utilities and libraries that are well suited for solving puzzles, I have a whole module in my repo that implements a 2d-array style structure (in elixir), which I've been able to use on 6 or 7 puzzles.

So there are ways to increase your speed other than "just be really fast at coding" (although you definitely need that too if you're trying to get up the rankings!)

Me too! I thought there was a ship that'll burn down if you don't code fast enough. The video thumbnail showing "100 seconds" made me think there was a timer.

Yea, I was thinking some kind of spaceship RPG where you'd need to quickly code up short programs to deal with various surprise situations.

"Quick, generate a prioritized list of polar coordinate firing directions based on this CSV of enemy ships in cartesian coordinates and their offensive strengths"

Edit: Chatting on AIM was how I finally learned to touch-type properly. It's funny how a small amount of urgency really improves the value of certain exercises.

This might go well with some theming based on A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky, given how Vinge describes programming and automation as critical to operating spacecraft in those books.

Those were fun reads!

Typing of the Dead is another one that provides some urgency. haha

Same.

1. Ask chatgpt to write the code

2. Debug the obvious errors

3. Ask stack overflow to find the non-obvious errors

4. Repeat

You accidentally become a better programmer like the old days when people would learn by typing in listings from compute.

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