Spend time learning, not searching - a directory for online learning resources. | Hacker News Reader

Spend time learning, not searching - a directory for online learning resources.

skillpunch.com

86 pointsfreshfey49 comments

Search results:

"Backbone.js": 0 "Medicine": 0 "Physiology": 1 "Design": 7+ results, 2 of which are books and wouldn't qualify as "online learning resources" "Android": 4 results, all paid "Objective-C": 1 result, paid "Ruby on Rails": 2 results, both railstutorial.org(1 is the amazon book, 1 is the website) "Machine Learning": the URL for ml-class.org doesn't show? All I see is a headline for "Machine Learning" with no description. Why would I click that?

Great idea, but right now there aren't enough search results for me to consider using this service again in the future.

Suggestions: Consider manually curating some of the common search terms for now. Also, put a link somewhere for creators of online learning resources to add their products. If I owned DiveInToRadiationTherapy.com I would want to add my product to your search engine.

Books who have kindle versions qualify as online learning resources (since you can download and read instantly on all devices). We included books because some topics have just few courses/screencasts.

Stuff like description, ratings + user-submitted content will of course follow :)

We'll work on the search algo, thanks! :)

This is precisely what I was going to say.

I'd like to add that "coffeescript" returned zero results and "javascript" a lowly two (both paid courses from udemy.com), even with the wonderful codeyear.com and codeacademy.com.

You are right. We wanted to launch fast, that's why we couldn't include all resources we wanted. They are very high on our list of "next to be added" :) Thanks for taking the time and checking it out!

0 results for ".NET"?

You should really put at least 5 or 10 results for the top 25 web technologies before posting this to Hacker News. Squandered marketing opportunity.

Also I notice you use Amazon.com affiliate code, udemy affiliate URL, and such. So perhaps your early emphasis is only on learning resources that PAY you to be listed? You should be more up front about that. This is just a specialized affiliate link site.

Yeah, we'll add .NET as well. We focused on launching fast and didn't think about that :)

No we want a balance of free and paid resources, because sometimes the free resources aren't necessarily the best ones. Udemy and amazon were included because they were the easiest to include with respectable content. The user should decide whether he/she will pick the paid or free resource to learn from, not we.

I think these guys are a lot smarter than you think.

Step 1: Create a basic app with some paid resources. Step 2: Post on Hacker News. Step 3: Get great feedback (all free) about how to make app really successful so people use it. Step 4: Make the recommended changes and the second iteration is a smashing success.

Very smart guys - I tip my hat to you.

Thanks a lot for your compliments :)

Of course we are hoping to get good feedback (some true gems have already been told!) from the very smart Hacker News crowd to bring the product to the next level.

But we want to keep a certain balance between paid and free resources, since we want to become the number one go-to location when it comes to searching for online learning resources (whether paid or free shouldn't matter).

Plus, people who are really looking forward to something like this are waiting in anticipation (Like me!)

Truly an MVP? Seems very light on the actual content. Interesting launch, I'm curious as to thoughts or copycats of very minimal launches with no "content" but launching only for feedback.

Well we don't have zero content. We have some, of course not everything, but we're working on it. And like I said earlier there's a fine line between trying to launch fast and filling it with content which at the end (maybe) nobody even uses. This way we found the topics interesting to most people and we'll quickly iterate on that!

"Ruby" -> 5 results, all paying ? You mean, there is no reliable source to learn Ruby online for free? Needless to say, this is hardly conceivable.

You are right, there are of course awesome sites to learn Ruby online for free, and we'll definitely include a whole batch of 'em in the iteration, they just didn't get into the first launch! ;)

Thanks!

Hey, it is a good site. When I typed Python I did get some good results.But when I typed Java ,I got results but all of them are links from Amazon. There are many free resources for learning java, it'd be better if u link them up :) And for node.js , nothing came up , try linking some books, screencasts and podcasts.

EDIT:I typed api and i get info about finance,capital and ROI :(

We (me and @therod on twitter) built this page in one week.

There are a lot of great online learning resources but not one place where you can search for all of them (right now we have around 2800 entries, we'll add more every day), that's where Skillpunch.com comes in. The idea is that we help you find the interesting stuff and get out of you way afterwards. This is just a MVP. We're really interested in building ratings, user-submitted content and some social features (like discussing about a course, etc.), it all depends on the feedback, we'll hopefully get.

We hope you like it :) The backstory with details (how and why can be found here: http://www.explodingfistbump.com/articles/how-and-why-we-cre...)

That link gives a 404 for me. :(

Also, going from your webpage, hitting the about button, it says you can read about the development progress, seems to link to the same place (well, without the "www"), and it also 404's.

Thanks!

Edit: Seems to be a typo, you have

http://www.explodingfistbump.com/articles/how-and-why-we-cre...

in the links, and going to explodingfistbump.com and following the link there, it is

http://www.explodingfistbump.com/articles/how-and-why-we-cre...

where the difference is the "d" in "-we-created-a-directory-"

Edit again: Foo URL shortening. Well, anyway, the second link works, the first one doesn't. I hope you can find the typo from this.

Premature launch? Linear algebra: only Khan academy videos. Relativity: nothing. Various other topics in Physics: nothing. Seriously, you have a long way to go before you can even approach Google, not to mention some already existing portals.

I'm sorry that you feel that way :( We'll keep working hard at it and maybe someday, we'll be able to make you happy as well :) As for the topics: on it!

Nothing for C# (could be the #, admittedly), HTML5, canvas animation, canvas or "C". :(

It found C (Without quotations) but it was in the context of other words: VC, Capital, CSS etc.

We'll look into adding those topics, since they are very important, thanks.

As for the search, it isn't working perfectly (yet), we're on it! :) Thanks!

I put in art, and it came up with things with art in the word, example: Partial Fraction Expansion. So I decided to search, "art" with quotes, and it came back with nothing.

It'd be neat if when I searched for Art it brought up the Art History category I found down the list immediately, and then other things like the Photography category.

edit: I'm no expert on search or designing a search so this is not at all stated eloquently, I hope you understand my meaning.

We do and of course you're absolutely right. The search algorithm is far from perfect. It'll definitely work better on the next version :) Thanks for your feedback!

I started with no linking it, after few searches, however deficient they might have been, I kind of like this.

I think people who complain about affiliate code just feel sorry they didn't come up with something like this.

I would put free and commercial resources in separate columns or just color them differently and make sure there are both of them present.

Good luck.

And seriously .Net is a must

very high on the list, thanks! :)

Thank you! Well it was either that or ads, either way some people are not gonna like it! We decided to color them in the same way since we're putting a price tag on them on the page already.

its a great idea, just a little bit more polish and i might consider using it

suggestions:

if there's nothing found, try listing some results from google (or a link to a google search)

after hitting search, the most important thing to list is the search result, not the logo (try showing a very small logo on the results page)

Thanks for the feedback!

Cool idea! Is it mainly a science/tech directory, or do you plan on incorporating other online learning resources (like language learning sites/books/etc.)? It looks like mainly Khan Academy results show up for me. Also, you have "Communication" as an example search term, but it doesn't return any results.

Thanks! No, we'll try to cover all topics. That's just the beginning and resources like Khan Academy are highly respected and useful, that's why included it from the start.

As for the search term, the search algorithm isn't perfect yet, working on it :)

Great idea!

One comment: A search for "Python" returned some good results, but you only list one format for them. "Learn Python the Hard Way" has six different formats including a free format (HTML). You only list the online video course.

Thank you. You're right, in the first batch we looked for a balance between paid and free resources that's why we just chose a few providers of online courses/screencasts/books, the other formats will be added soon. :)

Love the idea, this could be killer if it were more complete

Suggestions (didn't see anything from these come up in my initial searches):

Teamtreehouse.com

lynda.com

codeschool.com

codeacademy.com

You're absolutely right, these are a top priority on our list (we compiled a huge list while researching the idea). Thanks for the suggestions! :)

Cool, looking forward to seeing it grow

It would be nice to have a table of contents in addition to the search.

something like this? http://www.skillpunch.com/entries

I found that. If it started collapsed and had the ability to expand and collapse categories and subcategories, it could serve as a table of contents. Right now it is the contents, not a table thereof.

Yeah this would make sense. We'll look into that for the next iteration, thanks!

The interface is easy, simple and intuitive. It's something that I aspire for my website. Its a great resource. Just curious how you will drive traffic without the content?

That's the question, we'll be able to answer you in a few days/weeks. We believe that as long as we solve your problem (search for online learning resources), you'll find use and come back.

I suppose you could partner with learning organizations that want a fast and simple way to search reference materials.

Yes, we're planning on doing that. However we thought that we might need a base of traffic to even talk to them, otherwise it wouldn't make sense for them I suppose.

nothing on Haskell :(

We'll add some, promise. Do you know any good ones?

There's tons on haskell

http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/o5iov/modern_reallw...

I searched for 'django' and it found nothing.

We'll add some django resources as soon as possible! :)

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