The obscure and the arcane - the maturing of content on Treehouse..

Teamtreehouse is approaching what might be called a "critical mass' of content.

When I first joined up last year, content was still a bit sparse

(with the courses somewhat skewed toward beginners).

Now we are starting to get into course content that is not only become more "advanced"

but more specialized (dealing with a very narrow set of functions or API calls

within specific programming languages).

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I'm about three-quarts of my way through Java annotations course when this realization hit me.

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Of course it has been in the back-of-my-mind since Instructor Love's Python Regex course.

The thing is --even if you are a Java programmer or Python programmer by profession

you could go years without having to encounter (or be forced to deal with) these types

of programming language "nookholes".

Is it helpful to know something about regex (in any language) after

you've reached a certain point in your programming maturity --of course.

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Here's the thing though:

People who join up with TeamTreehouse come from diverse backgrounds with diverse gOals for being here.

I really don't think the people in charge of the TeamTreehouse content really think about

this a lot (because their backgrounds are all...well..programming).

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If they did there might be more of an effort to provide "classification wrappers"

for "pathways" (I guess the Treehouse term would be "tracks")

in the different programming languages content.

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For most learning contexts there are three common "super groupings":

-Basic

-Intermediate

-Advanced.

..for the level of difficulty in learning anything.

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And yes I know they try to use these terms in naming the various courses

(sometimes successfully, sometimes not...)

Distinguishing between 'Beginning' and 'Intermediate' is usually pretty easy,

by just asking ""If someone knew nothing about the subject could this course be a starting point (without per-requisites)?"

The dividing line between 'Intermediate' and 'Advanced' is a little fuzzier.

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However, just having a huge list (like many of the languages do

in the 'Library' page of Treehouse site)

is often not as helpful as if you could have 3 tabs for Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced

--for example a Python Library page could use these tabs:

http://teamtreehouse.com/library/topic:python

The same breakdown could also be incorporated into the Tracks:

http://teamtreehouse.com/tracks

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I just want to add a link to this thread:

https://teamtreehouse.com/community/flask-build-social-network-tacocat-challenge

..where Ben Jakuben has said:

..from a team perspective to say that we actively and intentionally try different ways of challenging and assessing students..

I expect that this making-courses-more-challenging is going to produce

even more difficult final challenges after what happened

with the Django basics final challenge:

https://teamtreehouse.com/community/did-kenneth-learn-nothing-from-the-pushbackfeedback-provided-for-his-tacocat-challenge

..so I really think there's a need to have some type of notice

or classification that clearly presents

a "forewarned-is-forearmed" tactical advantage to students

in terms of which courses can be most productive of their time.

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Such students (who may NOT becoming from a programming background),

can almost unintentionally wander into a course

which they have only a slight interest and suddenly

find themselves deep "into the weeds" of a swampland

with no easy way to find their way through..

I'm not saying there needs to be something like on medieval maps/globes that

says "Hic sunt dracones":

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/no-old-maps-actually-say-here-be-dragons/282267/

..but better forewarning would definitely be appreciated.

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I'm a working adult that often only has difficulty carving out even tiny time slots

when I get home, get something to eat, then get ready for bed.

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In politics there is something called "the sound bite".

Teamtreehouse course content creators need to concentrate on

something I would call "the code biting".

.

It's basically micro-sub-segmentation of the course content (and challenges).

.

Instead of having a final challenge with 4 parts, have maybe 3 challenges (broken apart)

then an "addon" (optional) final challenge part, so the sub-segments of the course

(both video and challenges) can be consuming in more easily digestable "bites".

Make it easier for students to acquire more information

and more information will be acquired (hopefully).