Welcome to the Treehouse Community
Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.
Looking to learn something new?
Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.
Start your free trial
Daniele Manca
Courses Plus Student 7,548 PointsProgramming courses
To all,
I love treehouse and I think it is one of the best tools around the world, to learn real skills, however I am going through a dilemma, after doing some research,
Courses such as PHP, Ruby and others do not really allow student to gave a grasp of the languages being taught, because let's be frank, to become programmers, it will take far more than some hours following such small courses and then some hours practising, so mu question would be:
Will there ever be courses on here which will enable students to become proficient in a programming language?
:)
3 Answers
Stone Preston
42,016 PointsIn my opinion the courses do make you proficient in the languages. However it's being able to apply that newly acquired profiency to your own projects and being able to creatively use what you've learned to make something original that's hard. Treehouse can't really help with that part
James Barnett
39,199 PointsTL;DR - I don't think so, because it takes the better part of 1,000 hours of writing code until you can write a program worth of the name.
Here are a few articles that provide some perspective on the topic:
Teaching Programming To A Highly Motivated Beginner
"There are lots of trendy books, online courses, and live seminars that claim to teach you programming (or other skills) in 7 days or 3 weeks or whatever. It's obvious that you cannot master a new skill in a few weeks, but I don't think anyone actually believes they can. The real danger with these sorts of "get skilled quick" schemes is that they don't emphasize sustainability. These courses are like fad diets that might get you to lose 10 pounds right away, but you are not going to keep the weight off unless you develop sustainably good habits. Similarly, there is no way to get skilled at programming unless you keep struggling over many years; but in order to stay motivated to keep struggling, you must be doing something you are passionate about. Struggling isn't fun, so without the proper motivation, it's all too easy to give up prematurely."
"I don't think there is any better way to internalize knowledge than first spending hours upon hours growing emotionally distraught over such struggles and only then being helped by a mentor."
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years
"Bad programming is easy. Idiots can learn it in 21 days, even if they are dummies"
"By the age of 20, the elite performers had all totalled 10,000 hours of practice over the course of their lives. The merely good students had totalled, by contrast, 8,000 hours, and the future music teachers just over 4,000 hours."
How a blacksmith learned to code
This blog is by a blacksmith who spent 9 months teaching himself to code at night and after studying for over 700 hours he ended up managing to get hired as a junior developer making 70k/year.
P.S. - I don't work for Treehouse, this is just my own 2 cents.
Daniele Manca
Courses Plus Student 7,548 PointsI do agree with all these posts James,
The main point is, to keep up the motivation to learn programming, I would personally need someone to mentor me on a regular basis, because otherwise I would lose the motivation very easily,
Having someone we can turn to in order to understand the issues with the code we look at, we write and so on, is very important and here on treehouse we can only ever get a grasp of the code we are shown by the tutors, after which we will be totally on our own.
James Barnett
39,199 Points> I would personally need someone to mentor me on a regular basis
I'm not sure that fits in with the Treehouse business model, however Thinkful has a course like that.
Daniele Manca
Courses Plus Student 7,548 PointsYep, I know this is not the way treehouse works James, I'd gathered that,
I did have a look already at Thinkful, as well as other online programming mentorship companies,
I think personally I would stand a better chance to learn programming with such programmes,
:)
Alcibiades Montas
5,974 PointsHi Daniel,
I am in your dilemma....I know I want to code and I know there's only so far treehouse will take me...this is what I think...I am learning as much as I can with tree house + code academy....I am planning on signing on to thinkful after I am done with all the respective options here...the why? The main objective is to get as many hours on my own as I can so I can come in either at intermediate or advanced beginner to any classes.....
Daniele Manca
Courses Plus Student 7,548 PointsDaniele Manca
Courses Plus Student 7,548 Pointshey pal,
I know what you mean and somehow I concur, but you see, like you said, for me Treehouse can't help with providing guidance after fulfilling the Ruby course for example, because for as good that it may be, someone will need to write Ruby code several hours a week, eat, drink and breathe it, to speed up the learning process and also a whole lot of practising will be needed,
Tough call, but yeah this is how I feel.
Nowadays there are several companies around the world which offer Coding bootcamps, something like 12 weeks in which you can literally not live the place and will have to code for 80 hours at week or more in order to succeed,
:D