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

General Discussion

Willie Suggs
PLUS
Willie Suggs
Courses Plus Student 5,879 Points

why does tree house teach the way it does?

why does tree house teach thru projects instead of teaching a complete programming language and then have you utilize, practice, and master what you've learned thru projects. it seems like they just throw you into a project & you only pick up whats in that project not really having a full understanding of the language or how to use it, you can only mimic what you saw in the project when you try to code on your own instead of having a full understanding of the language and being able to be as creative and dynamic as you want to with your code. like html isn't hard learn so why isn't it like a complete course on just mastering that, like I'm paying this monthly bill but get a greater understanding of the language itself from eli the computer guy or free apps on my phone

5 Answers

Connor Unwin
Connor Unwin
11,100 Points

Treehouse does this by making you understand the core principles of any given language or subject and shows you how to apply it to any given project, which can be really helpful in real life scenarios either for work or building off an idea. Plus if you expect treehouse to help you master something, you need to put the work in yourself from time to time, yes it might be tough but that's why we have this great community, so that experienced students can help explain.

Willie Suggs
Willie Suggs
Courses Plus Student 5,879 Points

i hear you, but just learning the core principles leaves so much out especially for someone that doesn't want to learn a little of this and a little of that. i want to learn all of the elements of a language and thn how to use them. its like tree house gives you the outline structure of a language but doesn't teach or drill you on it as a whole, unless its some course on here i haven't seen. in other words its like teaching someone to read & teaching phonics on how to break words down & sound them out but never really teaching any other aspects of reading. i literally got a greater understanding of html & html5 watching eli the computer guy & making que cards from a free learn html app

Willie Suggs
PLUS
Willie Suggs
Courses Plus Student 5,879 Points

yes tree house started me off great but now i want to really dig in deep and its projects, and slow talking videos, like just give it to me just put everything thats within a language on the table and let me soak it up. like not knowing how much more of a language you need to learn to truthfully say "i know this language is frustrating"

If you just want to know the language there are places that do that. And they are an invaluable recource when you want to look something up. I've gone through all of w3schools html5 css3 JavaScript and jQuery. When I was done...I didn't know that much. Here we learn HOW to put things together. The other stuff is easy to look up.

Julian Gutierrez
Julian Gutierrez
19,201 Points

You bring up some interesting points but to be honest I can't think of a single institution that teaches in that manner. Programming in my experience has been something you learn by studying but "cement" by doing, hence the video project structure. As for a "full understanding of the language" well that's a difficult one, you can have someone who's been programming for a decade and not have a "full understanding of the language". Unfortunately Treehouse will not teach you everything there is to know about a certain language, neither will a university for that matter, what it will do is give you a path to learning a given subject and usually those subjects/projects directly tie into work you'll being doing in that profession. Personally nothing motivates me more than being able to put what I'm learning into action; the sooner the better.