4 ms·

I've never used Pluralsight, does anyone have any CS related recommendations? Does Pluralsight vet their content? Or is it a YouTube style free for all?

Parazitull 7y ago
The content seems pretty vetted. When I used it to learn .net mvc, the course was pretty well produced and structured. Also, if I remember correctly, Troy Hunt had a web security course on the site.
runevault 7y ago
Their content is vetted. Having taken 50+ hours worth of content over the years, everything has been at least good. And I'm not sure how much CS content they have, the stuff I've seen tends to be more "how to use language/tool x"
mongol 7y ago
It is not a really a replacement for a CS university education. But good training on various computer languages, frameworks, tools.
wenc 7y ago
If you work with a Microsoft stack, Pluralsight is one of the best resources out there for rapid learning. The content is highly curated and the pedagogical quality is high. (another comment mentions that instructors have to audition: maybe this is why. Other platforms like Udemy are hit or miss.) So I usually work on backend stuff (Linux) but some time ago I was tasked with writing an app with a complex UI in C#/.NET, which I had no prior experience with. I tried reading books but it was slow-going, because the Visual Studio environment is just that: visual, with lots of clicking on the screen. I randomly stumbled upon Pluralsight's C# course (a limited Pluralsight subscription is bundled with every MSDN subscription): it was amazing. Screencasts made so much more sense than PDFs for something like Visual Studio. I found myself productive in C#/Visual Studio in just 2 weeks (caveat: I have a 15 yr programming background, just not in C#), and it took me another 2 weeks to finish the product. I breezed through courses in ASP.NET Core as well, and I'm now productive in that environment too. (As a Python veteran, I have to grudgingly confess that developing webapps in a statically typed language is so much more convenient and so much less error prone than in a dynamic one. Flask is a mess... a workable mess, but a mess nonetheless) I don't know how polished their non-Microsoft materials are, but almost any course I've encountered on Microsoft-related technologies have been excellent. I'd especially recommend them to folks who don't really care to work with Microsoft tech (though C# is a truly pleasant language to work with -- designed by Anders Hejlsberg of Turbo Pascal and Delphi fame), but find themselves having to -- these courses will get you productive in no time. They're like a compressed signal to the brain.
- cvhashim 7y ago
  Thanks for the comment. I will look into Pluralsight as a learning resource. Was recently thrown into a C#/.NET project.
cheschire 7y ago
Instructors for Pluralsight have to audition[0]. I bootstrapped my C# knowledge into a programming career entirely off of Scott Allen's MVC 3 videos back in 2011/2012. He took the time to not just follow the project templates, but to start from empty projects and explain step by step what MVC's plumbing was doing. It was hugely eye opening and really removed a lot of the man-behind-the-curtain feeling of how that framework functions. John Papa's videos also helped me understand a few new design patterns I'd never used, such as Unit Of Work and repositories. Even if you don't use those things, it's awesome to be able to recognize the pattern with others use them. They went through a few expansion phases and merged / bought a couple other training companies into them, and their content really took off after that. Now they have some great automated assessment programs that help focus your learning onto different tracks[1]. I haven't used their product in a couple years now as I've shifted into management and my organization has a lot of internal management training courses that will keep me busy for years. Still though, Pluralsight is where I go back to when I want to pick up a new specialist skill. 0: https://www.pluralsight.com/teach https://www.pluralsight.com/teach 1: https://www.pluralsight.com/product/skills https://www.pluralsight.com/product/skills
thinkmassive 7y ago
Heh, I probably would have said "Udemy style free for all" but the point is basically the same. According to my email I signed up for a free trial a couple years ago, then closed my account when the trial ended. I don't recall the exact course(s) I tried, but in general they seemed like higher quality than the typical distance learning factories. I know Nigel Poulton has some courses there on Kubernetes and Docker. Based on his books, and the audio adaptations of them, I expect his Pluralsight courses to be of high quality.
- antisocial 7y ago
  Yes, I highly recommend Nigel Poulton's Kubernetes course on Pluralsight, as well as Janani Ravi's ML courses.
- Avalaxy 7y ago
  Thanks for the Docker suggestion. Watching them now, they're very pleasant compared to the videos on youtube.
azemetre 7y ago
Depends what you mean by vet. I feel that they offer good content but once you reach advance levels of knowledge everything feels tailored to beginners or advanced-beginners. This is my experience for their web content, nothing too in-depth really.
radicalbyte 7y ago
It doesn't really cover CS; you're better with Coursera for that. Their .Net content, Angular content and Android content is of a very high quality. I wasn't so impressed with the Java content - but that might be more down to the subject matter. I'd probably have hated anything covering Webforms or WCF or other such monsters ;)
- flanbiscuit 7y ago
  oh Android I'm definitely interested in so I'll give that a look for sure. Thanks!
  - radicalbyte 7y ago
    I hope that you get some value from it :) I enjoyed it and understand how Android works from a high level although I never went on to implemented anything on the platform :)
JeremyMorgan 7y ago
Full disclosure, I'm an employee / author at Pluralsight. Yes, they vet the content. Authors themselves are vetted before becoming accepted and all content is reviewed for accuracy and quality. For CS, we have a ton of great content. One of my favorites in that category is Algorithms and Data Structures Part 1/2. It's very thorough and easy to understand. There are also some CS courses that are geared towards specific languages like C++, F#, Python etc.

Parazitull 7y ago

The content seems pretty vetted. When I used it to learn .net mvc, the course was pretty well produced and structured. Also, if I remember correctly, Troy Hunt had a web security course on the site.

runevault 7y ago

Their content is vetted. Having taken 50+ hours worth of content over the years, everything has been at least good. And I'm not sure how much CS content they have, the stuff I've seen tends to be more "how to use language/tool x"

mongol 7y ago

It is not a really a replacement for a CS university education. But good training on various computer languages, frameworks, tools.

wenc 7y ago

If you work with a Microsoft stack, Pluralsight is one of the best resources out there for rapid learning. The content is highly curated and the pedagogical quality is high. (another comment mentions that instructors have to audition: maybe this is why. Other platforms like Udemy are hit or miss.) So I usually work on backend stuff (Linux) but some time ago I was tasked with writing an app with a complex UI in C#/.NET, which I had no prior experience with. I tried reading books but it was slow-going, because the Visual Studio environment is just that: visual, with lots of clicking on the screen. I randomly stumbled upon Pluralsight's C# course (a limited Pluralsight subscription is bundled with every MSDN subscription): it was amazing. Screencasts made so much more sense than PDFs for something like Visual Studio. I found myself productive in C#/Visual Studio in just 2 weeks (caveat: I have a 15 yr programming background, just not in C#), and it took me another 2 weeks to finish the product. I breezed through courses in ASP.NET Core as well, and I'm now productive in that environment too. (As a Python veteran, I have to grudgingly confess that developing webapps in a statically typed language is so much more convenient and so much less error prone than in a dynamic one. Flask is a mess... a workable mess, but a mess nonetheless) I don't know how polished their non-Microsoft materials are, but almost any course I've encountered on Microsoft-related technologies have been excellent. I'd especially recommend them to folks who don't really care to work with Microsoft tech (though C# is a truly pleasant language to work with -- designed by Anders Hejlsberg of Turbo Pascal and Delphi fame), but find themselves having to -- these courses will get you productive in no time. They're like a compressed signal to the brain.

cvhashim 7y ago
Thanks for the comment. I will look into Pluralsight as a learning resource. Was recently thrown into a C#/.NET project.

cheschire 7y ago

Instructors for Pluralsight have to audition[0]. I bootstrapped my C# knowledge into a programming career entirely off of Scott Allen's MVC 3 videos back in 2011/2012. He took the time to not just follow the project templates, but to start from empty projects and explain step by step what MVC's plumbing was doing. It was hugely eye opening and really removed a lot of the man-behind-the-curtain feeling of how that framework functions. John Papa's videos also helped me understand a few new design patterns I'd never used, such as Unit Of Work and repositories. Even if you don't use those things, it's awesome to be able to recognize the pattern with others use them. They went through a few expansion phases and merged / bought a couple other training companies into them, and their content really took off after that. Now they have some great automated assessment programs that help focus your learning onto different tracks[1]. I haven't used their product in a couple years now as I've shifted into management and my organization has a lot of internal management training courses that will keep me busy for years. Still though, Pluralsight is where I go back to when I want to pick up a new specialist skill. 0: https://www.pluralsight.com/teach https://www.pluralsight.com/teach 1: https://www.pluralsight.com/product/skills https://www.pluralsight.com/product/skills

thinkmassive 7y ago

Heh, I probably would have said "Udemy style free for all" but the point is basically the same. According to my email I signed up for a free trial a couple years ago, then closed my account when the trial ended. I don't recall the exact course(s) I tried, but in general they seemed like higher quality than the typical distance learning factories. I know Nigel Poulton has some courses there on Kubernetes and Docker. Based on his books, and the audio adaptations of them, I expect his Pluralsight courses to be of high quality.

antisocial 7y ago
Yes, I highly recommend Nigel Poulton's Kubernetes course on Pluralsight, as well as Janani Ravi's ML courses.
Avalaxy 7y ago
Thanks for the Docker suggestion. Watching them now, they're very pleasant compared to the videos on youtube.

azemetre 7y ago

Depends what you mean by vet. I feel that they offer good content but once you reach advance levels of knowledge everything feels tailored to beginners or advanced-beginners. This is my experience for their web content, nothing too in-depth really.

radicalbyte 7y ago

It doesn't really cover CS; you're better with Coursera for that. Their .Net content, Angular content and Android content is of a very high quality. I wasn't so impressed with the Java content - but that might be more down to the subject matter. I'd probably have hated anything covering Webforms or WCF or other such monsters ;)

flanbiscuit 7y ago
oh Android I'm definitely interested in so I'll give that a look for sure. Thanks!
- radicalbyte 7y ago
  I hope that you get some value from it :) I enjoyed it and understand how Android works from a high level although I never went on to implemented anything on the platform :)

JeremyMorgan 7y ago

Full disclosure, I'm an employee / author at Pluralsight. Yes, they vet the content. Authors themselves are vetted before becoming accepted and all content is reviewed for accuracy and quality. For CS, we have a ton of great content. One of my favorites in that category is Algorithms and Data Structures Part 1/2. It's very thorough and easy to understand. There are also some CS courses that are geared towards specific languages like C++, F#, Python etc.