No disrespect intended, but is this just a quiz site?

I use Derek Banas but The Net Ninja is also popular. Seek out someone who suits your learning style.

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You forgot one very important thing. It`s FREE.

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Hi Robert,

Please keep in mind that I didnā€™t share these, because they work for me and I feel that videos tend to work differently for different users.

NetNinja and Banas were already mentioned and I do find they are solid, but Banas can be a bit hard to listen to for long periods due to his tone and lack of variation. Also I donā€™t like guys who are all over the map as much.

I really love funfunfunction by MPJ, heā€™s so entertaining and therefore engaging that Iā€™ve been happy to listen to his videos over and over again to learn something; this is not something I like to do very often, but heā€™s an exception. Heā€™s really the guy I go to when Iā€™m in JS anything and itā€™s x topic and Iā€™m stuck, then I cruise over to him and search for that topic and get my 10-15min fill of his version of teaching that topic.

Some others are: they are in no particular order btw.

  • Brad Hussey
  • LevelUpTuts
  • Quentin Watt
  • Wes Bos
  • thenewbost
  • Kirupa Chinnathambi (his english doesnā€™t have an accent and heā€™s published too)
  • Ryan Christiani
  • Thomas Bradley
  • Practical JS by Gordon course link - free

Good luck!!

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Shared. :wink:

Just look for my other comment in reply to robert

I hope youā€™ve submitted issues for those and/or pull requests.

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Your seeing things very black and white. Iā€™ve not seen a single ā€œquizā€ here, everything that has tests which must pass require you to actively write code, even if it is just a single line.

Learning how to program requires repetition and often hearing things explained different ways. The FCC challenges that attempt to teach small bits of code are one way of learning/seeing/doingā€¦you will probably need more ways as most others do as well.

However what FCC provides us with nicely is a pathway for learning. It was not started to be an all inclusive site, in fact, in the beginning, FCC was a set of curated resourcesā€¦go here to learn X, go hear to learn Yā€¦and I had to do X & Y twice each before I felt like I had really learned it (basic javascript and more advanced CSS for example). Over time FCC brought more challenges ā€œin houseā€ and stopped including the outside resources in the curriculum, but encourages learning form multiple sources.

Along the way you can keep coming back to FCC, and progressively challenging yourself.

The portfolio project is a big step for people who have never coded a site beforeā€¦but all the basic tasks are covered in the preceding challenges to the degree that if youā€™ve retained even some of those skills, you can get started, go back & review, and know what questions to ask.

Each challenge steps up the demands a little more. Going form portfolio to quote machine for example requires a little more javascript (loops, arrays, possibly fetching an API if you go that route), and part of the challenge is learning to find the resources to help answer the question as well.

FCC is not a set of lectures or tutorials, but more like a pathway. ive been following the pathway since itā€™s inception over 2 years ago (I was one of the first 100-200 to join) and have enjoyed what itā€™s helped me learn. its a very active learning process and not one thatā€™s been without challenges. But the projects keep me interested & engaged and coming back to challenge myself.

If you are following the curriculum and there seems to be a massive jump in what youā€™re being asked to do it may help to get on the forums or the gitter channel and say, ā€œI have learned X & Y, but have no idea how to do Zā€¦where can I learn that?ā€ sometimes there IS a challenge or whole set of them that people completely overlook b/c they forget that the did them. So deep learnign hasnā€™t taken place yet, and whether you learn here or elsewhere, you need to review before you can learn it.

Iā€™d rather know where to go to learn something needed while following a map, than to have resrouces for learning but no map with end goals or objectives.

If FCC isnā€™t workign for you, there are plenty of free & paid resources that you can learn fromā€¦no need to be critical of what is workign for lots of others. if you feel ike itā€™s a quiz site, then maybe you learn better in a different way, maybe those challenges are very easy for you (thus feels like a quiz of what you know) or maybe they are too hard for your current level. I donā€™t know where you are.

Lots and lots of folks have used FCC successfully to learn how to do cool stuff, even if it just means that FCC provides the path and the map to get to the end goal.

Iā€™ve used plenty of outside resources but keep coming back to FCC to get my bearings, challenge myself and keep finding out the next thing that I donā€™t know so I can go learn it.

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Iā€™ll have to disagree as well. I came to FCC to learn javascript. My prior programming experience was over 18 years ago so iI understood what things like loops and arrays were for, but didnā€™t know a single bit of javascript or how to get a browser to interact with a person, and how to make anything but a bare bones HTML website.

FCC gave me the path to learn the skills i needed to make the example weather app (as inā€¦my weather app was the example for the curriculum). I learned how to do it through the pathway and milestones i was exposed to in FCC. But I used plenty of outside resources to learn how to build my weather app. So FCC laid out the path, and I sought out other resources to help me expand my knowledge. Without FCC Iā€™d have been doing random tutorials and probably gotten lost like I did the LAST time I tried to learn to code (ruby on rails 2 years prior to FCC being born).

FCC didnā€™t expect me to know anythingā€¦but it provides me with the next step of what I need to figure out every step of the way.

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Hi,

First off I do not see what FCC could provide as a content resource that other bigger structures already provide. As it has been outlined before, this is not school. Itā€™s get your hands dirty and get to know where to find the information.

HOWEVER, what is really really cool here is that, you are free to use whatever you want to study, be it looking at other websites/project or reading more theoretical book. and in the end, you go back to FCC and pass the challenges by producing top of the line products. This gives employers and whoever could have an interest, the possibility to clearly assess how good you are, regardless of your path.

And as if it were not enough, there is a great community to help overcome challenges, stay motivated or get put in touch with potential recruiters (see get a developer job section of the forum)

Finally, there are some big badass challenges at the end of the curriculum that allow us to do some good by helping NGO.

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Help me understand this thenā€¦
Found some less obscure ā€˜developmentā€™ challenges which made some of the actions on FCC understandable. Now I have hit a wall on one process.
I was following along in CodeAcademy with the development of this pizza order 'whatever you call itā€™
It didnā€™t make any sense so I had to look at the ā€œfinished codeā€

var orderCount = 0;

function takeOrder(topping, crustType) {
console.log('Order: ā€™ + crustType + ā€™ crust topped with ā€™ + topping);
orderCount = orderCount + 1;
}
function getSubTotal(itemCount) {
return itemCount * 7.5;
}

takeOrder(ā€˜baconā€™, ā€˜thinā€™);
takeOrder(ā€˜pepperoniā€™, ā€˜regularā€™);
takeOrder(ā€˜pestoā€™, ā€˜thinā€™);

console.log(getSubTotal(orderCount));

You can call getSubTotal or itemCount ANYTHING and it works!

I donā€™t understand why the cumulative orderCount [1+1+1] multiplies by 7.5

and I donā€™t understand how they just threw in

function getSubTotal(itemCount) {
return itemCount * 7.5;
}

and how it works or what it references. Can anyone tell me where itemCount gets the 3 from? and how it gets picked up out of seemingly nowhere by

console.log(getSubTotal(orderCount)); ??

I have been wrestling with other info sources for a week trying to find out

when you have specific code questions, youā€™ll often get help faster posting in the gitter channel or a specific thread on the forum here, but anyone followign this thread will see your JS question.

It looks like the function getSubTotal is part of the business logic of this little program. Myabe they charge $7.50 per topping?

getSubTotal is a function that takes one parameter, itemCount. in order to use getSubTotal from anywhere else in the program, you can call it by passing in any number.

You could add to this program
getSubTotal (3);
and it would console.log 22.5

In the progrma orderCount is a global variable meaning any function in the program has access to it by that name. The first function takeOrder, adds 1 to orderCount every time a topping order is placed. That number, orderCount, is passed into getSubTotal as the number ā€œ3ā€

So itemCount gets the number ā€œ3ā€ because 3 is the value of orderCount which is used in the position of the parameter passed in.

To use FCC resources to help describe things, check this challenge:

Does that address your question? if you still have trouble grasping it, take the code from teh challenge above, and play with it a bunch of different ways

Here is your code in a runnable console:

And here is the FCC code sample in a runnable console:

Go in and change the inner workings of the function however you like and see how the output changes. Try adding a 3rd parameter (can you add 3 numbers? instead of 2?) then call your 3 variable function and see if it makes sense.

I hope this helps, itā€™s frustrating being stuck.

FCCā€™s biggest asset by far is the help from the user base. You donā€™t find that on codepen or codecademy or stack overflow (you can get answers there but sometimes you feel like you got punched instead).

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itemCount is equal to 3 because the argument use in calling getSubTotal function is orderCount. The function takeOrder add 1 to orderCount everytime it is called, and in the code takeOrder is called 3 times so orderCount is equal to 3. So the result of function getSubTotal(orderCount) is equal to 3 * 7.5 which is equal to 22.5.

I would describe the educational material here as ā€œscratching-the-surfaceā€. I donā€™t think it pretends to do otherwise.

The best aspects of FCC are the algorithms and projects, doing those is how you really learn. and recently Iā€™ve discovered how awesome this community is. :grinning:

Almost feels like we are using different sites. Starting with the HTML and CSS sections and continuing through the JS portion and beyond, each ā€œquizā€ introduces new concepts in what I feel is a logical progression, albeit not perfect. There is also Read-Search-Ask that is encouraged throughout. I currently work as a web developer and there are many of situations where I donā€™t know the solution, but I know the goal. I havenā€™t met a developer yet that doesnā€™t use ā€œRead-Search-Askā€. FCC is getting you ready for the real world :slight_smile:.

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This makes sense! An actual book at hand is useful to quickly find a reference i.e HTML.
I also reference Complete Web Development Course ($15) on Udemy.
Just my input

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@Beetz Iā€™m taking that udemy course by Rob P, and itā€™s been phenomenal. Wait til it goes on sale for $15. Itā€™s worth every cent. Gets you a free year of hosting, and very practical front end and back end stuff. Iā€™ve learned more through that course so far than I have any other resource.

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I have read the thread and I can understand robert194wĀ“s frustration. Most of those who disagree provide explanations on what FCC is and is not, and where and how you can get knowledge. Very nice responses, indeed.

In my opinion, the fact that Robert and many many others like himself feel lost in FCC is due to a lack of a proper introduction and explanation. I love FCC, and I have even got my front end certification. It is what it is and it is a shame that many find it worse just because that sense of deception which could be very easily avoided. It always amazed me and I have written in the forum some times about it.

I wish we had that intro. I also wish it explained/justified the order in which challenges are presented. It shouldnā€™t be something to look for on the forums or the wiki. And it is shocking because FCC is precisely all about structure, a learning path.

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I couldnā€™t agree more! Thatā€™s exactly my approach to learning web development.
First i started off with a udemy wourse and learned HTML CSS and some Js and jQuery and learned bootstrap on my own reading documentation and built 2 static websites which was super fun to do. Now in FCC i polish my knowledge by doing some quiz tests and challenged as i dive more into Js world and node.js
I actually think learning from various sources is what it takes to gain a solid knowledge.

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Iā€™ve spent over 1000 hours learning on fCC, and yes I had to search externally for the answers, but this was by far the best way to learn. Also, kind of the core of being a developer is you have to learn to find your own solutions, they wonā€™t be handed to you on a silver platter.

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Itā€™s so much more than a quiz site. Thereā€™s an entire global community on this forum and in the gitter chat rooms and facebook groups that are more than happy to elaborate on anything that you like, and point you in the right direction if you ever want to learn more than whatā€™s covered in the lessons. The social aspect is highly encouraged because the more you work with others, the more you learn from others. And working with others is expected at most companies hiring developers. If youā€™re not active in the community, youā€™re doing a huge disservice to yourself, and definitely not getting the most you can out of your time here.

You would never want to rely on a single source for learning a new skill, certainly not something as complicated as learning to code. Thatā€™s why youā€™ll find links to other resources, which you should definitely check out, and plenty of discussion on where else you can learn about the same topics covered here. Did you notice the slide during the intro that said ā€œRead Error-Google-Askā€? Thatā€™s not just for errors, by the way. If thereā€™s something you donā€™t understand youā€™re encouraged to seek out more knowledge, from anywhere you can find it. Many of the users here are happy to offer suggestions for other sites that cover the subject matter in another way or in greater detail. FCC doesnā€™t claim to be the be all, end all of coding knowledge, just a free site to learn it.

If youā€™re not getting Quincyā€™s newsletters, you should sign up, because they have great articles about the field of software development, keeping you informed about the issues you may one day face as a developer.

If youā€™re already doing all of this, and still feel like this site isnā€™t meeting your needs, well thatā€™s okay too. Some guys need a physical classroom and thirty pounds of text books to feel like theyā€™re really learning, and some guys can deduce all they need to learn about the universe from the back of a cracker jack box. How you learn or from where isnā€™t as important as the actual learning. Find what works for you, and know FCC is always here.

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The fact that FCC has made so many people who had zero previous coding experience land a developer job really tells it all. FCC has just enough ā€œeducational materialā€ to get you started, but not so much that you never develop, or even worse, lose the ability to find solutions using this cool thing called the Internet. If all you see in FCC is a ā€œquiz siteā€, then Iā€™m sorry but I donā€™t think web development is the thing for you.

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