Am I missing something about this learning website...?

Hey Steve! Im sorry your disappointed with Treehouse. I genuinely had the exact same problem when i started Treehouse. Especially on the code challenges. "Im stuck on this challenge, i cannot find a solution, so now i have to spend time asking the community and then wait for someone to reply?? Why, this is so stupid.."

Well no. I come to realise it is actually a really smart system... If there was contantly a golden glowing SHOW SOLUTION!!! button on the top of the page, every single time your stuck on the code challenge, your not gonna waste valueable time thinking about problem solving. Sitting infront of your laptop, taking notes, writing equations etc. Why would you do that when you can just see the solution with the click of a button.

Even if your not trying to "cheat" your way through the course, that golden button is just gonna be way to tempting every time your stuck on a problem. And ive found that when in comes to coding (and most other problem solving tasks), you dont learn anything when you just see the solution. You learn when you figure it out yourself, and if you just cant solve the challenge, get someone to give you some hints (NOT THE SOLUTION). And really learning how to learn is the key to learning! :P.

Also from my expierence and knowleagde (which is limited ofcourse), what makes a great programmer is someone hwo is capable of finding solutions to problems they cant solve, using tools like the MDN or other documentation websites for whatever language your trying to learn. When you get into more complex programming, working for companies or just more complex tasks in general, there will never be a "see solution" button. So you might aswell learn from the start to solve problems on your own, and if that is not a possibility, learn how to ask direct and detailed question on websites like Treehouse or Stack Overflow.

So yea, from the start of your journey i think its a good idea to learn that the solution is never gonna be just given to you.. You have to make an active effort.

As for the apple TV feature, i have no expierence with this, but this is not a community question. Questions or request like these should go directly to Support.

But thats just my 2 cents. Hope this helps tho! Please feel free to write back.

I know folks have different learning styles but I find that I learn better when I discover an answer for myself. The "no answer key" style used here seems ideal to me but may not be so for others. Now in the case of a quiz, you can always take it over but the challenges require a bit of research. I often learn as much doing the research as I do watching the course videos.

But if the "flashcard" style (flip over to reveal answers) learning works better for you, I'm sure you can find many other resources that work that way. Happy learning!

Hey Guys,

Thank you very much for the replies. It's not that I'm disappointed with Treehouse as a whole or anything, I've really liked the class and instructor so far (this is the only class I've gone though at this point), and I do totally get what you're saying about having the answer easily there in a button, but to me, that shouldn't matter. On sites that do have this option available, I don't just simply click it to move on to the next section, I would just be cheating myself and I would hope others would realize that as well. The problem I have is that I am wasting training time by going and trying to find help by searching through forum posts. I don't really see how this is at all beneficial, at least not to me personally. I understand a lot of programming time can be spent searching Google and stackoverflow for help/answers but I don't want to do this when I'm trying to go through a learning website. If I get stuck and I want to see the answer so I can reverse engineer it, why is having that option a bad thing? Like I said above, if people are here to learn they should realize clicking it is the last resort, it's no different than treehouse making us go search for the answer in the forums. Either way you go, a button for the answer or searching the forums, the result is the same, you get the answer...so why waste people's time with the search since if they're searching in the first place, they want the answer and in many times, so they can reverse engineer it, not just "cheat".

Thanks again,

Steve

I have to agree with Steven and behar. When you are just given the answer, most people would just click and go, and this teaches nothing. This method, regardless of what others say, does not teach or get retained by anyone. If "seeing the answer" is the best way to learn, then why after going through the lesson does one not know the answer as it would have been "seen" in the lesson?

In my opinion, Treehouse has a learning style that most closely represents the Real World. Whether you are working within a company, running your own, or just Freelancing, there is going to be no "show me the answer" button. You are going to need to search (Google is really my best friend) and research (blogs and forums dominate my bookmarks) when you get stuck, and trust me, no matter how experienced you are, or how long you've been doing this, you will get stuck... many times... over and over... So, no I disagree in that a "button" or "searching" yields the same result. Treehouse's style of teaching is just helping you gain the tools and the habits of being able to self-educate and self-troubleshoot along side of teaching you the languages.

Now, it will get better the more you do, and it will get easier in that you'll be able to "find" an answer faster, but there will always be research and learning. That's why you will hear the term "Life-Long Learner" pretty much everywhere in the coding community.

As Steven pointed out, if Flashcard style learning is a better fit, you could make your own Flashcards as you go through the lessons. I make hand-written notes for every topic and every video here on Treehouse. I learn best by writing things down, plus I then have the bonus of having resource materials I can later go back to when I get stuck on something in the future.

I do hope you find your "best" way, and Welcome to Treehouse. :)