8 ms·

Try iOS: iPhone App Development Course

85 points by wmboy 14y ago

nicholassmith 14y ago
Code Schools courses have been uniformly excellent, and $25 is a steal for one of them.
- wmboy 14y ago
  Yeah, their Rails for Zombies series is one of the best options for learning beginner Ruby on Rails.
  - doktrin 14y ago
    Really? I didn't find the whole "code in a browser window" experience to be particularly helpful, nor in any way reflective of an actual development environment. The production value of their videos is high, however.
tluyben2 14y ago
I find the dev-in-browser more interesting than the courses. Can you make a service out of that?
rsobers 14y ago
I love Code School, but why use Kickstarter for this? Why not just build the course and charge for it afterwards?
- CodeCube 14y ago
  Do you have 20 grand lying around to buy a server farm of mac minis? ;) In order to offer the course, they need to build the infrastructure ... and in order to build the infrastructure, one needs capital to even start on the venture. In the past, you would go to a venture capitalist to front the money. Kickstarter offers a way of doing that without the strings attached. I find no qualms with this usage of kickstarter
  - Aqua_Geek 14y ago
    > Do you have 20 grand lying around to buy a server farm of mac minis? Why start out with a whole farm? Why not start small - with just a few? Surely you don't need all of them up front in order to build out the infrastructure for them. Then, as $$ starts coming in from sign-ups, you start provisioning more and more of them.
    - envex 14y ago
      How would you feel if you paid for the course, but their current farm wasn't working because of all the new signups, or people trying to do the same course? They want to build a big farm to begin with to handle the load.
      - duked 14y ago
        They can easily use scheduling/cron and create N slots for 1 Hour and assign a slot for a build .... No need to have a huge infrastructure just smart schedule and if really lots of sign up patient users ...
      - Aqua_Geek 14y ago
        Agreed - I'd be pretty upset. Alternately, they could take (free) signups for beta slots. Once your number comes up (i.e. when they provision enough machines to support the next batch of users), you hand over cash and get access.
eggbrain 14y ago
Code School is a great company, and this web course will definitely help bring iPhone development to many users, rather than only ones with Mac's and Xcode. That being said, I feel... Conflicted about a company, whose goal is to make profit, using Kickstarter as a way to raise money to build the course. When I was supporting up-and-comers on Kickstarter, it felt like I was helping the little guy be on the same level of the big corporations. But with this, I become worried that when companies don't have enough money, or don't want to deal with the risk of product development, they will make a Kickstarter, which has no real requirement for disclosure of where the money goes, or on actually delivering a product, and build a profit making service on the backs of their customers up front in exchange for the possibility of a coupon off the course.
- nhangen 14y ago
  I feel exactly the same way. I pay for Codeschool because I enjoy playing around with it, and would have assumed that my payments would be used to fund the development and advancement of their curriculum. To see this leaves me feeling soured on the whole thing.
  - rubymaverick 14y ago
    We've gotten a couple of questions about this so far, and I just added an FAQ item in the Kickstarter project about this. Here is the answer: Most of our courses do take a lot of time and money to build, and we've been able to fund those courses by charging money. But there is a much larger initial capital investment to build an iOS course like the one we want to build. We had a couple of different ideas on how to raise the money, from taking out a loan, to getting a more traditional VC or angel investment. We decided to try the Kickstarter approach so we could get funding from the people who would actually want the course.
  - phereford 14y ago
    I feel the exact same way. What's funny/weird about this sentiment is that if Envy Labs/Code School got $2mil+ in funding from an investor I would be totally cool with it and happy for them. The fact that they are crowdfunding while I am a paying customer just rubs me the wrong way.
iamyohann 14y ago
Whats the best IDE for development on linux? I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. http://www.voicejug.com http://www.voicejug.com
cnp 14y ago
I'd me much more interested in a CodeSchool course on RubyMotion!

85 points by wmboy 14y ago

nicholassmith 14y ago

Code Schools courses have been uniformly excellent, and $25 is a steal for one of them.

wmboy 14y ago
Yeah, their Rails for Zombies series is one of the best options for learning beginner Ruby on Rails.
- doktrin 14y ago
  Really? I didn't find the whole "code in a browser window" experience to be particularly helpful, nor in any way reflective of an actual development environment. The production value of their videos is high, however.

tluyben2 14y ago

I find the dev-in-browser more interesting than the courses. Can you make a service out of that?

rsobers 14y ago

I love Code School, but why use Kickstarter for this? Why not just build the course and charge for it afterwards?

CodeCube 14y ago
Do you have 20 grand lying around to buy a server farm of mac minis? ;) In order to offer the course, they need to build the infrastructure ... and in order to build the infrastructure, one needs capital to even start on the venture. In the past, you would go to a venture capitalist to front the money. Kickstarter offers a way of doing that without the strings attached. I find no qualms with this usage of kickstarter
- Aqua_Geek 14y ago
  > Do you have 20 grand lying around to buy a server farm of mac minis? Why start out with a whole farm? Why not start small - with just a few? Surely you don't need all of them up front in order to build out the infrastructure for them. Then, as $$ starts coming in from sign-ups, you start provisioning more and more of them.
  - envex 14y ago
    How would you feel if you paid for the course, but their current farm wasn't working because of all the new signups, or people trying to do the same course? They want to build a big farm to begin with to handle the load.
    - duked 14y ago
      They can easily use scheduling/cron and create N slots for 1 Hour and assign a slot for a build .... No need to have a huge infrastructure just smart schedule and if really lots of sign up patient users ...
    - Aqua_Geek 14y ago
      Agreed - I'd be pretty upset. Alternately, they could take (free) signups for beta slots. Once your number comes up (i.e. when they provision enough machines to support the next batch of users), you hand over cash and get access.

eggbrain 14y ago

Code School is a great company, and this web course will definitely help bring iPhone development to many users, rather than only ones with Mac's and Xcode. That being said, I feel... Conflicted about a company, whose goal is to make profit, using Kickstarter as a way to raise money to build the course. When I was supporting up-and-comers on Kickstarter, it felt like I was helping the little guy be on the same level of the big corporations. But with this, I become worried that when companies don't have enough money, or don't want to deal with the risk of product development, they will make a Kickstarter, which has no real requirement for disclosure of where the money goes, or on actually delivering a product, and build a profit making service on the backs of their customers up front in exchange for the possibility of a coupon off the course.

nhangen 14y ago
I feel exactly the same way. I pay for Codeschool because I enjoy playing around with it, and would have assumed that my payments would be used to fund the development and advancement of their curriculum. To see this leaves me feeling soured on the whole thing.
- rubymaverick 14y ago
  We've gotten a couple of questions about this so far, and I just added an FAQ item in the Kickstarter project about this. Here is the answer: Most of our courses do take a lot of time and money to build, and we've been able to fund those courses by charging money. But there is a much larger initial capital investment to build an iOS course like the one we want to build. We had a couple of different ideas on how to raise the money, from taking out a loan, to getting a more traditional VC or angel investment. We decided to try the Kickstarter approach so we could get funding from the people who would actually want the course.
- phereford 14y ago
  I feel the exact same way. What's funny/weird about this sentiment is that if Envy Labs/Code School got $2mil+ in funding from an investor I would be totally cool with it and happy for them. The fact that they are crowdfunding while I am a paying customer just rubs me the wrong way.

iamyohann 14y ago

Whats the best IDE for development on linux? I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. http://www.voicejug.com http://www.voicejug.com

cnp 14y ago

I'd me much more interested in a CodeSchool course on RubyMotion!