
Show HN: Learn to Code for Free - robtherobot
http://upskillcourses.com/
======
hatsix
I'm looking for courses that seem to be the opposite of this... no language or
programming at all, but instead looking at the process of breaking down
problems.

We've hired several devs out of bootcamp, and they're all taught how to code,
but not how to solve problems using code...

Anyone have material that might be good for this? Books, videos, courses?

~~~
BigChiefSmokem
Put the newbie gumshoes to work by tracking down simple bugs and designing
simple patches to fix them. They need to be able to read other people's code
to decipher and debug the coding style they are seeing before they are allowed
to build any new module themselves. They need to understand other styles so
they can form their own. They should be able to detect any code "smells" and
reason with pros/cons why their implementation could work better and provide
proof (like execution timing or better readability).

Playing a lot of puzzle games help as well, especially games where the thing
to do is very abstract like in a point-n-click adventure game.

~~~
hatsix
I'm hoping there's a way to teach them problem solving BEFORE they learn to
code... I feel like it should be a prerequisite to enrolling in the bootcamp.
I don't remember how I learned it, but it certainly wasn't reading other
people's code at my first job.

~~~
joshschreuder
I feel like there's so much intrinsic to the code to solve the problem though,
like how the debugger works, git bisect / git blame to determine where an
issue might have arisen, commenting out lines of code and checking if they
cause a particular issue, etc.

I don't think I learnt about problem solving in the abstract, it was more
about specific applications of problem solving in the programming world.

~~~
hatsix
Someone gives you a one paragraph description of a feature... I assume you
don't immediately open up the debugger and start git bisecting... I'm talking
about the things that happen immediately after being presented with a problem,
and before you start typing code.

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robtherobot
I've decided to make my course on complete full-stack web development free,
forever! It's a massive amount of content. Please let me know what you think
of the course!

~~~
freehunter
I'm going through it as a tech professional who is a non-developer. I know how
to code, I just don't do it professionally (and I don't know Ruby, let alone
Rails).

I'm loving it. Obviously the "here are some commands" and "go find Google
Chrome" made me laugh a little but I understand the audience they're for. I
love how quickly we get into actually creating something, it keeps my interest
when I see progress. It's been 15 minutes and I already have a Rails blog set
up, yay!

Seriously, I haven't gotten that far in, but right now I'm fully believing
there is a success story with your teaching method. Congrats, that's not an
easy feat.

~~~
alexhakawy
for you it sounds great but for someone like me I like to understand how
things work under the hood. Yeah I made a blog in 15 minutes using Ruby and
Rails but how did that happened under the hood? I like to fully understand
things not just be told how to do it.

I guess that's why PHP being embedded in HTML allows me to see the bigger
picture.

~~~
freehunter
Well, I think there's two things to that.

First, from what I understand, Rails has a lot of "magic". So on that note,
you're probably just not going to like Rails or Rails-like frameworks in
general (like Django, lots of magic). PHP or even something like Flask might
be better for you. Different people like different levels of abstraction, and
believe it or not you can write web pages in C. PHP was originally designed as
an abstraction over C, to add a little "magic" so you didn't need to know how
things worked under the hood in order to get a web page running. These days,
Rails is the new magic, and PHP is the new "under the hood".

Secondly, the course does go into more detail later on (I'm on #20 of the
"build a saas app" right now), where after every video that you write code,
there's a video that explains why you did that and what it does to the
program. It actually goes into more detail than I was expecting for a tutorial
that starts off with "here's how to install Google Chrome".

~~~
alexhakawy
that's good to hear because as a beginner I struggle with the magic parts of
the web . Most tutorials nowadays are all magic.

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gaius
"Forever" in the "full stack" world means 6 months before a whole 'nother load
of frameworks are in fashion and you have to start again...

~~~
BoysenberryPi
HTML,CSS, and Javascript are never out of fashion. The only thing he teaches
that is applicable to what you said is Ruby on Rails and even then Rails has a
strong foothold on the market.

~~~
Ph0X
Does it? RoR was the craze 2-3 years ago but I honestly haven't heard much
about it as of late... Now everything seems to be Node.js

~~~
BoysenberryPi
Systems that already exist need to be maintained. Why do people still write
COBOL? Because it's cheaper to maintain an already in place system than to rip
it out and replace it with the newest fad.

~~~
Ph0X
I guess, but I'd imagine there's always more work for creating new sites than
for maintaining old ones.

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jholman
My professional experience says otherwise. There's always more work
maintaining/enhancing sites than creating new ones.

By the way, Rails is the craze from maybe 10-6 years ago. consider e.g. [0]
But it is still far, far from dead. Time flies, but not as fast as you
suggest.

[0]
[https://www.google.ca/trends/explore?date=all&q=ruby%20on%20...](https://www.google.ca/trends/explore?date=all&q=ruby%20on%20rails)

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mcfrankline
Roben, I'm actually disappointed to find out that you've made this course
free. It seems the folk on reddit gave you a nasty bit of pressure?

Well, i don't see how you're going to be able to maintain this project(100's
of hours of videos) without earning anything for it. Quality is bound to
decrease in the long run. I believe you should stick with your previous
model(Free for a month or two, subscribe when its useful or pay a fixed sum
for lifetime access).

~~~
alexhawdon
Maybe incorporate an Ubuntu-style 'suggested payment' part to the signup? You
could have one or two reminders during the course if they choose 'Free'. Or
supplement with paid-for content that goes beyond the course?

I agree that it's a lot of work and wouldn't be unfair to seek some
compensation.

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atmosx
OT: The reviews on the frontpage are fake right? I'm not bashing the course by
any means, I'm just curious. I see lots of services display similar _user
quotes_ and was wondering if it's a standard marketing practice.

~~~
blauditore
There are marketers who do this with real quotes, sometimes by asking
customers for a statement and permission to publish it.

Those here look kind of unrealistic since all reviews are worded thoughtfully,
gave 5 stars, have similar length and no grammatical errors. Also, each user
has a perfect portrait image as profile picture - this isn't even the case on
LinkedIn...

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JorgeGT
I see you make heavy use of Cloud9, glad to see that I'm not the only one
using it as a learning sandbox environment. It is truly a great platform, I
use it to introduce people to Linux (terminal, editing files, etc.) without
the hassle of setting a virtualbox, installing any software in their
computers, or risking my machines.

~~~
551199
I tried it few weeks back and sadly they force you to add credit card to
proceed. Few seconds of googling showed people using fake ones to circumvent
it. Not really interested in that nor exposing card details.

~~~
robtherobot
Send a message to support@upskillcourses.com and you'll get hooked up with a
free Cloud9 account.

~~~
alexhakawy
just send you an email for a free account.

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vipinsahu
Looking same kind of tutorial for PHP . BTW may i know which tool you have
used for screen recording thanks

~~~
alexhakawy
would be nice to find something like this for PHP

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mynameisbahaa
lynda.com has some great courses on php by the authors kevin skoglund & David
Powers. These courses are not free though and they are mostly about php.You
will find courses covering html,css,javascript and a lot more there too. PS I
don't work for them I only like their work

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throw20161123
This is great work. And (this is not a jab at the creator) a signal for me to
move on from web development.

We are now at a similar point to knowing HTML in 1998 would land you a plum
job; except it's now frontend frameworks. There's going to be tremendous
downward pressure on wages in the next few years; especially in web
development.

I recommend everyone who wants to stay competitive to move on to harder things
or leverage whatever soft skills they have.

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rsdlearning
Looks like this is from the same guy that did Codermanual. Wonder if he is
actually going to be around to help for this course as he more or less
abandoned the other one after a couple of months of it getting popular. I have
a pretty bad taste in my mouth for this instructor still from that experience.

------
alexhakawy
Why Choose Ruby for a beginner. Why not JS and NODE EXPRESS or PHP that would
have made this more simple for people who are new to programming and looking
to get a job.

~~~
GavinMcG
What makes you think JS or PHP are "more simple" for that audience?

There are plenty of Ruby jobs out there, and it's an elegant and well-designed
language that's got a mature framework. Especially crucial for relative
beginners: it doesn't have the flavor-of-the-week problem that JS does, nor is
its most prominent example a legacy mess, as Wordpress is for PHP.

~~~
alexhakawy
all most all of the web is written in PHP, a beginner can't understand how
everything fits together by learning Ruby. With php you can literally insert
it into HTML. For me is all about the big picture, Plus I think there are more
jobs in PHP than Ruby

~~~
igor_filippov
Well, and then you get people who insert php into html in production
environments. Believe me, I've seen it more than once. I don't see how PHP is
easier than Ruby. It's not Haskel, after all.

~~~
alexhakawy
cause PHP isn't magic like Ruby on Rails.

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alexhakawy
just curious why Ruby for beginners or is this a course for people with some
knowledge of code? why not choose JS or PHP

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webwanderings
This is incredible. Thank you for your generosity and kindness in opening this
up for everyone.

~~~
robtherobot
You're welcome! Hope you enjoy the content!

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akkartik
Why're you making it free?

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robtherobot
Because why not?

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akkartik
Lol, come on, reveal. You taught so many students. Why suddenly turn off the
revenue?

(I'm not an entirely uninterested observer:
[http://akkartik.name/post/mu](http://akkartik.name/post/mu))

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alexhakawy
I'm guessing this course isn't aimed at people who's new to Web development?
how are we suppose to know some of those rail commands? like generate scaffold
blog posts?

~~~
robtherobot
This course is comprehensive and goes from beginner to some fairly advanced
content. No previous coding experience is required. You will be guided from
the beginning.

~~~
alexhakawy
That sounds nice, How Does it cover HTML, JS and Ruby on Rails in Depth? I
assume that would take a long time lol

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jheriko
i'm pretty sure that if you can't learn for yourself for free by using the
internet (or even libraries and help files etc. like i did) your already
starting on the wrong foot.

having the ability to solve that problem for yourself is important... if you
struggle with that you will struggle in most real world dev roles imo, because
you will need to continue to do this for yourself throughout your career.

~~~
freehunter
Is this not considered "learning on the internet for free"?

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seaborn63
My sister has been wanting to try out coding for a while, and this looks
perfect for that.

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michaelkaufman
This is great! I've been wanting to learn more about Rails for a long time.
Thanks.

~~~
robtherobot
Sweet! I think you'll like Rails. Message me if you have questions along the
way. I'm here to help.

~~~
551199
Are the later parts paid only or unlocked when progressed to certain point?
'User Memberships and Accepting Subscription Payments' and 'User Profiles and
Relational Databases requires' shows message 'Lecture contents locked'.

~~~
robtherobot
No they are free. You just need to sign up for a free account to see them.

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alexhakawy
Does this cover HTML5 and CS3? How much JS is taught to be able to make me
employable

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delblues
Man, thanks. You course in insanely well explained and good!

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ericzawo
This is right up my alley, I'll let you know how it goes.

~~~
robtherobot
Perfect! Message me if you have questions along the way. I'm here to help.

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imranq
Why not just use Udemy instead of a separate site?

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azazo
Look forward to checking it out. Thanks!

~~~
robtherobot
Cool. Message me if you have any questions along the way. I'm here to help!

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alexhakawy
how does this compare to www.codermanual.com?

~~~
rsdlearning
Looks like it's the same instructor so i'm curious as well.

