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Kris Muir
2,355 PointsPHP basics. some of the coding exercises are really FRUSTRATING because it's unclear what the H we are being asked to DO
(@alenaPHPbasics) not only that, but the answers required are sometimes overly particular so that even something that is technically correct is 'wrong' and what answer is being asked for don't always make sense. for instance:
the $firstName $lastName concatenation... why camelcase on those two variables but then it is WRONG to do it on the $fullname variable? not only that but what the H do you want from the exercise? i have no idea what output is being asked for in challenge 3 and there are several ways to accomplish something usually. ARGHHHH!
comparing values. nowhere in the video, or in additional notes, that i can find is ANYTHING stating how or showing how to set a variable equal to the result of a comparison. :/ we are told how to do the var_dump to get the value, sure. but not the syntax to set that equal to a variable. a simple var=var_dump(comparison); doesn't seem to work. if it is correct, it isn't the particular thing the challenge wants.
i am getting so FRUSTRATED with things like this. the vids are pretty good but the questions like these are making me want to flip a table. i hate skipping the challenges but i keep being forced to when i get questions like this. it also makes me want to quit these vids and look elsewhere to learn. :( :( :( :(
3 Answers
Daniel Gauthier
15,000 PointsHey Kris,
The forums are generally used by students on both ends of the questions, and the instructors rarely seem to interact through them.
Personally, I agree with your assessment of the newer PHP material with Alena. The material is well presented and explained, but there are often a lot of questions about the challenges and most of the questions do seem to stem from the confusing nature you expressed.
That said, since the forums are mainly used by students, you would have a much better chance of getting these kinds of issues in front of Treehouse staff by using the support link at the top of the page and contacting them through either the "Contact Support" button or the help@teamtreehouse.com email address they supply.
Also, your shout out isn't working, so I'll tag Alena Holligan for you here in hopes of drawing her attention over.
Good luck with the course!
Stephanie Youstra
18,513 PointsI've been "Rating this Quiz" at the end of each challenge (something I don't normally do!), and using that "Why did you give this rating?" box to point out the trouble spots. Do those get read by "official people", or should I be hitting up the support link/help email address instead?
Daniel Gauthier
15,000 PointsHey Stephanie,
Throughout my time with Treehouse, I've rated several challenges and quizzes. Being one to go back through material either to refresh myself on the material, or to see where a student is getting stuck, I've often felt that the rating feedback had very little impact on things in the long run.
Whenever I've felt strongly enough about an issue, I've written to support directly, and have found that to be a really successful way to reach the actual staff when a problem is genuine.
That said, I feel the material Alena has contributed is much better than the previous PHP material offered by Treehouse, so I've been much less concerned about the existing pitfalls. In the end, things are moving in the right direction and the content Alena has created filled a very necessary hole in the material offered through Treehouse.
Definitely write into support if you have concerns though, they're definitely responsive to concerns if you present your a well written case.
Good luck with the course!
Alena Holligan
Treehouse TeacherHi Kris Muir ,
I am truly sorry you are struggling with the code challenges. The goal of each of the challenges is to make sure you understand and can use the concepts that have been covered up to this point. It is true that there are many different ways to do things in programming and that's a good thing. But often for the challenges I am trying to make sure you understood a particular way of doing things. Sometimes I don't always think of every way that something could be accomplished using the tools we cover. We do go through a QA process with students for each course, which does at times catch things I miss. Perhaps you would be interested in helping to QA and make quizzes more understandable in the future?
As teachers, we do look at feedback, but generally as a group, not each time feedback is submitted. If you are stuck on a Code Challenge, you should try the forums first but then don't be afraid to reach out to support. If there is something more they need help with, they will contact the teachers directly.
To speak to your specific questions:
Q1. It's important in programming that you can follow case requirements, so you are given specific case to use. The goal of this challenge is to make sure you can concatenate strings and use escape sequences. For the final output, you should echo a single line that uses the $fullname at the beginning and the escape sequence for a new line at the end. The final output should show:
Rasmus Lerdorf was the original creator of PHP
//making sure there is a line break at the end.
Q2: We have concatenated strings together and also combined variables arithmetically to produce another variable. I like your suggestion to add specifics in the teacher's notes, so I went ahead and added that. Check the teacher's notes now and see if that helps.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to improve the code challenges themselves or the instructions.
Thank you,
Alena
Kris Muir
2,355 Pointshi Alena, i appreciate your response. : ) i didn't see how to send a personal message, so i'll have to just put it here.
CODE: as for improving the coding challenges... i'm not really sure what to suggest. i'm currently in a webdevelopment course and in talking to fellow students they have pretty much all had the same experience as me where the coding challenges are overparticular (compared to coding challenges we have done on other videos), as the code will work in an editor, showing the correct answer. i'm not sure how that would be fixed on the back end there. the instructions were sometimes vague or unclear. generally, we all just had problems with the challenges. even the classmate who is really good at coding already and knows python very well.
QUIZES: one thing i personally would recommend is that if there are quiz questions on something, please have it be something you went over in the video. a few items were buried in notes, which i think i was not alone in assuming was FYI and additional info.
CONTENT: i think your video content is good and you cover things pretty well. it was just frustrating that this is the only course i have had to actually skip all of the code challenges except a handful, as i was unable to make them work. (but verified the correct results in an editor). i also like how you comment out what you are doing before writing code. i found that to be helpful.
GESTURES: one more thing from a personal arena... perhaps i am a little ocd but i noticed that you do the same hand gestures a lot - like the kind taught in public speaking? (there are only like 3 of them as well) they don't always seem to accentuate points, but rather are just restless hands or repetitive motions. which is kind of distracting. i've been part of a Toastmasters group (which is all about the public speaking) and i would just say as constructive crit, that you may want to keep an eye on the use of gestures and see if they are drawing attention to critical points, or are just tossed in just because. you could probably lose 2/3 of the gestures and be A-ok :) and it would look a lot more natural.
again, thank you for taking time to respond.
i'm sorry that at this time i wouldn't be able to assist in QA as my class is going at a breakneck speed and i cannot take on anything additional. perhaps when it is over, i can relate what issues i ran into with the code challenges so that you can evaluate that.
sincerely, Kris
Lauren Miller
2,576 PointsIt's 2 years later and I'm having the exact frustrations as well with the coding challenges for this track. I also do not feel like there is enough explanation as to why this matters. I'm trying to get a deep understanding of WordPress and it asked for me to take this track first before going into WordPress Development track. However, I took the HTML/CSS courses and had no issues understanding the concepts and completing the quizzes.
Also, the Console never works properly in Workspaces. I find I have to close out the console and re-open it every time we make a change versus hitting enter like Alena does in the video.
I'm not sure I can take 13 hours of this...
Alena Holligan
Treehouse TeacherIf you're working on the WordPress tracks, you wont be using workspaces. If you already have a basic knowledge of WordPress and you have a local environment setup to start playing around with WordPress, you're ready to jump into the WordPress Development track. If you just need to install a local environment, check out
MAC: Local PHP Dev Environment OR Windows: Local PHP Dev Environment
and then Installing WordPress Locally
If there are specific issues with quizzes or code challenges, feel free to reach out to me directly and we can work together to make them more clear and easier to understand for all our students
bulelani mbali
1,552 Pointsbulelani mbali
1,552 PointsSame here really frustrating answer is right but you cant processed