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For a lot of digital businesses a subscription makes sense. Imagine if back in the day Rails Casts was $3 an episode instead of $20 per month for unlimited mon

by nickjj 9y ago

For a lot of digital businesses a subscription makes sense. Imagine if back in the day Rails Casts was $3 an episode instead of $20 per month for unlimited monthly access. Suddenly if you wanted to learn Rails, you'd end up watching many dozens or hundreds of 5-10 minute videos for $3 a pop. You would constantly feel like you're being nickel and dimed. It's hard enough to get someone to buy from you once, but expecting someone to make dozens or hundreds of small transactions would be madness. It creates a really high pressure scammy feel to it IMO. Don't you feel the same way?

philwelch 9y ago
Or you could pay $40 once for a book: https://smile.amazon.com/Rails-Way-Addison-Wesley-Professional-Ruby/dp/0134657675/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525658101&sr=8-1&keywords=the+rails+way&dpID=51K8QKlrljL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch https://smile.amazon.com/Rails-Way-Addison-Wesley-Profession... I think the greatest loss of the modern web has been this explicit move away from literacy. It's like the dark days of television are back again.
- thirdsun 9y ago
  There's a place for both. While RailsCasts didn't aim to replace a detailed book, it undeniably featured a lot of very helpful and valuable content.
- nickjj 9y ago
  I looked through the table of contents for that 1,088 page book and I didn't see anything that hinted on how to do sorting on table columns. And this is exactly why Rails Casts was great. You would Google "how do I sort table columns in Rails" and find the episode, watch it in about 10 minutes and implement it in your code base. Rails Casts has been dead for years and it still ranks in the top 3 today on Google for that phrase btw. I don't want to flip through 1,000 pages in a book to find 1 specific feature I am struggling with right now. I may never find it.
  - AlexandrB 9y ago
    > I don't want to flip through 1,000 pages in a book to find 1 specific feature I am struggling with right now. I may never find it. I'd much rather do that than watch a video about it, where I'm forced to scrub back and forth trying to understand the key concept at the speed the presenter is speaking instead of reading a section multiple times (which can be much faster).
    - nickjj 9y ago
      But what if the video is 5 or 10 minutes long and it's focused on the exact problem you have, plus it has a blog-post style block of text under it with the code examples? And on top of that, there's a git repo which shows a before / after for just that feature. That's the value in something like Rails Casts.
    - falsedan 9y ago
      1.5x playback speed, friendo

by nickjj 9y ago

philwelch 9y ago

Or you could pay $40 once for a book: https://smile.amazon.com/Rails-Way-Addison-Wesley-Professional-Ruby/dp/0134657675/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525658101&sr=8-1&keywords=the+rails+way&dpID=51K8QKlrljL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch https://smile.amazon.com/Rails-Way-Addison-Wesley-Profession... I think the greatest loss of the modern web has been this explicit move away from literacy. It's like the dark days of television are back again.

thirdsun 9y ago
There's a place for both. While RailsCasts didn't aim to replace a detailed book, it undeniably featured a lot of very helpful and valuable content.
nickjj 9y ago
I looked through the table of contents for that 1,088 page book and I didn't see anything that hinted on how to do sorting on table columns. And this is exactly why Rails Casts was great. You would Google "how do I sort table columns in Rails" and find the episode, watch it in about 10 minutes and implement it in your code base. Rails Casts has been dead for years and it still ranks in the top 3 today on Google for that phrase btw. I don't want to flip through 1,000 pages in a book to find 1 specific feature I am struggling with right now. I may never find it.
- AlexandrB 9y ago
  > I don't want to flip through 1,000 pages in a book to find 1 specific feature I am struggling with right now. I may never find it. I'd much rather do that than watch a video about it, where I'm forced to scrub back and forth trying to understand the key concept at the speed the presenter is speaking instead of reading a section multiple times (which can be much faster).
  - nickjj 9y ago
    But what if the video is 5 or 10 minutes long and it's focused on the exact problem you have, plus it has a blog-post style block of text under it with the code examples? And on top of that, there's a git repo which shows a before / after for just that feature. That's the value in something like Rails Casts.
  - falsedan 9y ago
    1.5x playback speed, friendo