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Man your blog post brought back so many memories. I went through just about the same learning path, and in 2012 as well. Like you I'd done CS in HS and taken on

Man your blog post brought back so many memories. I went through just about the same learning path, and in 2012 as well. Like you I'd done CS in HS and taken one class in college, but couldn't build anything real if my life depended on it. To me what really made me transition is their WebDev course In all seriousness, though, is their CS253 the greatest course ever or is it the greatest course ever?! Huffman was just brilliant in providing a nice framework with which to think about development. After I took that course, it was if Googling my way through problems and learning from the available resources on the internet became that much easier, because now I could see how all of these little parts fit into a broader context. That's one thing that definitely disappointed me about how Udacity has grown. That course taught by Huffman was so good in that he explained so much of the theory and reasoning, and not just tools. Peter Norvig's advanced Python course is another one of their offerings which feel very similar. Lately, though, I think their courses have resembled much more what you find on CodeAcademy or places like that: A lot more focused on tools, content, etc., and less so on the broader picture.

didgeoridoo 11y ago
CS253 all the way. I still have Steve Huffman's "pretty neat, huh?" echoing in my brain. Whenever anyone asks me "how can I learn to build web applications", it's the first place I point them. He even goes over basic crypto and security, yet doesn't oversell what he's teaching. Just perfect. I agree that the Udacity classes available today just don't measure up, sadly.
Alex3917 11y ago
Yeah CS253 definitely is the greatest class ever. The problem with web development is that to even make a hello world page there are like 10 completely different and unrelated technologies you need to know. So you can know a little Python, a little HTML, and some js, but if you've never used a web framework or SQL then you're out of luck. CS253 really combines all these technologies, getting you just far enough into each of them that you can make something that actually works — and then be able to understand (albeit with difficulty at first) the rest of the documentation on your own.
trymas 11y ago
Udacity is awesome, I got hooked on programming and use python as my go to language due to udacity's programming 101 class. I still have a lot of subscribed courses which are not finished :) and take a look at them from time to time. Though with Huffman's webdev course I would disagree. I do not know when you took it, but myself, I did it just as it was released, and at that time it was not fully complete. I mean in a sense of extra helping material. Huffman discussed some basics, which were great (especially about how not to make noob mistakes), but for a complete python and webdev noob exercises were really opaque. I remember how flooded forums were of how to setup your app for google app engine or how to complete some exercises to fit it (GAE).

didgeoridoo 11y ago

CS253 all the way. I still have Steve Huffman's "pretty neat, huh?" echoing in my brain. Whenever anyone asks me "how can I learn to build web applications", it's the first place I point them. He even goes over basic crypto and security, yet doesn't oversell what he's teaching. Just perfect. I agree that the Udacity classes available today just don't measure up, sadly.

Alex3917 11y ago

Yeah CS253 definitely is the greatest class ever. The problem with web development is that to even make a hello world page there are like 10 completely different and unrelated technologies you need to know. So you can know a little Python, a little HTML, and some js, but if you've never used a web framework or SQL then you're out of luck. CS253 really combines all these technologies, getting you just far enough into each of them that you can make something that actually works — and then be able to understand (albeit with difficulty at first) the rest of the documentation on your own.

trymas 11y ago

Udacity is awesome, I got hooked on programming and use python as my go to language due to udacity's programming 101 class. I still have a lot of subscribed courses which are not finished :) and take a look at them from time to time. Though with Huffman's webdev course I would disagree. I do not know when you took it, but myself, I did it just as it was released, and at that time it was not fully complete. I mean in a sense of extra helping material. Huffman discussed some basics, which were great (especially about how not to make noob mistakes), but for a complete python and webdev noob exercises were really opaque. I remember how flooded forums were of how to setup your app for google app engine or how to complete some exercises to fit it (GAE).