My very limited and one person experience with online video tutorial sites. Don't read too much in to it, just my experience.
- Lydia: Probably the best in terms of depth and options. But I only tried couple of them.
- TutsPlus: Second best in my opinion. But again, limited experience with only one author.
- Khan Academy: Love the UI, love the gamification, love the concept. But its more for entry level education (for now) and less of high-level, in depth learning. If they can apply the gamification to higher level learning (or just have more higher level content) it would be awesome.
- Treehouse: I have very very limited experience (just the php video series), I felt that it was a bit goofy. Like their target audience is someone who is not computer savvy or 12 year old.
I feel video is probably not the best medium for learning programming related contents. I think video can definitely supplement a text heavy learning, but otherwise I think textbooks are better way to learn programming (maybe its just me).
I would love to know experience from other HN-er's or any other online video tutorial sites they might have tried.
I've tried code school, codecademy, and treehouse, myself (never really got into Lynda.com, seemed like the quality was too varied).
I like the treehosue approach - videos plus quizzes plus exercises plus projects - but I do think it's aimed mainly at beginners (which is probably why it felt goofy to you, because they're trying to make it approachable for people who aren't yet comfortable with technology).
I do wish there was a resource out there like Treehouse for learning more advanced topics.
GA's Dash and CodeSchool have taught me more in the last two weeks than I could have gotten at the same rate in all the self-help books I've collected.
It's not video. It's video+challenges. CodeSchool in particular has challenging challenges where you have to actually think, not just regurgitate.
Khan Academy is also in-browser project based. I think it supplements learning, but they don't really push the boundary. Like for Code Academy (which I forgot to mention before), the exercises were very simple and I didn't think they pushed me to think harder. Way too easy. I want very hard projects/exercises but I also want them to give me study materials that will help to me understand the problem. Code Academy won't make anyone a serious programmer, probably not even a hobbyist.
The other two mentioned, I never used them before. I might check them out.
Some feedback: the button hover states could be a bit more intense and some transitions would be nice (e.g. the navigation flyout on smartphones). The navigation button is also missing a cursor: pointer attribute.
The new site looks great guys! I have had our dev staff using treehouse for over a year now, and for the devs that get into it, I can see their excitement after each new technology they start to pick up.
Comments
My very limited and one person experience with online video tutorial sites. Don't read too much in to it, just my experience.
- Lydia: Probably the best in terms of depth and options. But I only tried couple of them.
- TutsPlus: Second best in my opinion. But again, limited experience with only one author.
- Khan Academy: Love the UI, love the gamification, love the concept. But its more for entry level education (for now) and less of high-level, in depth learning. If they can apply the gamification to higher level learning (or just have more higher level content) it would be awesome.
- Treehouse: I have very very limited experience (just the php video series), I felt that it was a bit goofy. Like their target audience is someone who is not computer savvy or 12 year old.
I feel video is probably not the best medium for learning programming related contents. I think video can definitely supplement a text heavy learning, but otherwise I think textbooks are better way to learn programming (maybe its just me).
I would love to know experience from other HN-er's or any other online video tutorial sites they might have tried.
I've tried code school, codecademy, and treehouse, myself (never really got into Lynda.com, seemed like the quality was too varied).
I like the treehosue approach - videos plus quizzes plus exercises plus projects - but I do think it's aimed mainly at beginners (which is probably why it felt goofy to you, because they're trying to make it approachable for people who aren't yet comfortable with technology).
I do wish there was a resource out there like Treehouse for learning more advanced topics.
GA's Dash and CodeSchool have taught me more in the last two weeks than I could have gotten at the same rate in all the self-help books I've collected.
It's not video. It's video+challenges. CodeSchool in particular has challenging challenges where you have to actually think, not just regurgitate.
What is your experience with in-browser, project-based sites, like code academy, code school, and code avengers?
Khan Academy is also in-browser project based. I think it supplements learning, but they don't really push the boundary. Like for Code Academy (which I forgot to mention before), the exercises were very simple and I didn't think they pushed me to think harder. Way too easy. I want very hard projects/exercises but I also want them to give me study materials that will help to me understand the problem. Code Academy won't make anyone a serious programmer, probably not even a hobbyist.
The other two mentioned, I never used them before. I might check them out.
I'm usually a massive fan of what you guys do, but man, I've got to say that you need to use this tool on the pricing page, in particular:
http://leaverou.github.io/contrast-ratio/
Like the redesign! Is it Bootstrap based?
Some feedback: the button hover states could be a bit more intense and some transitions would be nice (e.g. the navigation flyout on smartphones). The navigation button is also missing a cursor: pointer attribute.
The new site looks great guys! I have had our dev staff using treehouse for over a year now, and for the devs that get into it, I can see their excitement after each new technology they start to pick up.
Treehouse is AWESOME!
We're so excited about this new release. Hope you like it!
I hope it's because you're being bombarded right now but it is moving like molasses for me.
Do you have any plans to offer free 3 days trials?
Even better ~ they offer a 30 day money-back guarantee. Cough up a credit card up front for a whole month, then get your money back.