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Hello all: I have a friend interested in learning coding and she found www.freecodecamp.com and www.courseforward.com. I know nothing about the sites and was wondering if they are legit, have anything to teach, and could help a complete beginner.
Thanks.
Kurt
modified 15-Oct-14 11:33am.
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Your best bet would be to point her towards a good book instead
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I am already supplying books, and plan on helping her out all the way, but I just figured since I have limited time one of these freeby camps might help. Do they have anything at all to offer?
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Thanks then! I will tell her not to bother.
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There was a post about Microsoft Small Basic[^] a while ago. Might be worth looking into for a newbie.
Jeremy Falcon
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KurtPW wrote: ...was wondering if they are legit, have anything to teach, and could help a complete beginner.
How could anyone other than your friend possibly answer that? What helps one person may not necessarily help another. Training is an individual thing. If she goes through the training and is then able to solve a problem via code, then the training was likely beneficial.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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Here's how I learned...
1) Pick a language that's both easy and available
2) Get someone to show you a few basic commands (Hello world type stuff)
3) Get a reference
4) Think of something fun and simple you want to make
5) Figure out how to make it using reference material
6) Goto #4.
Granted... I did this back in 1984 in Atari Basic... I'm sure there are better ways now... But hey, the above list worked for a four-year-old...
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Ian, that is *exactly* how I am going to be approaching my part of this. I have offered an idea for a web application, and am coaching on the basics. I enjoy the coaching part.
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Have a look at Pluralsight.com - they do a free trial, month subscription and annual. At least you can try before you buy. Reasonably large catalogue of courses.
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I have always heard good things about Pluralsight.
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They have great authors. 
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The only thing i see those sites offering in return, at the most; is a reference to say that you've been there. I'd go with the majority of people here and agree, to spend productive time in a good programming book. Which would be time better spent!
Regards,
CodingK
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Hi Kurt,
I went through : freecodecamp [^]
It feels like code project, i mean the discussion etc are almost the same.
So why not join code project it self.
I would better suggest either W3Schools or may be tutorials Point to learn the basics.
You have a try it editor there, so you can very well practice as well.
I would then recommend going to such sites for advancing to the next level.
Thanks,
Rahul
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I've recently been promoted to Director of IT, and have the responsibility of creating a bonus plan for my employees. The company owner has laid out some criteria:
* Bonuses are only paid out in months when the company is profitable
* Bonuses should be based on an objective measurement and not on subjective perceptions
* The measurement should be based on the employee's individual performance
But I'm stuck because I can't quite figure out the objectives by which to measure my (so far) sole employee.
I don't want to base it on the number of bugs fixed, because that means the bonus will decline as the products (two websites) improve, and it will also decline if bugs go undiscovered (and therefore, unfixed).
I don't want to base it on the number of paying subscribers because this particular employee's work is mostly unrelated, or only peripherally related, to the subscriber count.
Basing it on the number of programming tasks completed is problematic because that can be subjective, dependent on how one defines "complete". The owner doesn't like subjective.
How do you measure programmer performance? What criteria do you use in your work to determine bonuses?
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Matt Maynard wrote: How do you measure programmer performance?
You mean "average" performance. Well, there's no agreement on that one yet, but most of us agree that measuring LOC/day isn't a very valuable metric.
I'd recommend it though if I was on your team; copy/pasting a lot of comments would surely get me that bonus 
See, there's the problem with metrics - if you start taking things like the amount of bugs solved, you'll get a lot of bugs solved, just not the ones that the customer really needs. People will game the system.
I've seen lot of experienced developers bite on hard stuff with little progress. I've also seen people who were merely "faking it". It may take a while for an outsider to distinguish both.
I also do not see how a bonus makes programmers write better stuff. Training does that. 
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Well, officially one seventh of my salary is a "performance bonus". But in fact, it is fixed. Fortunately.
Nowhere have I seen a useful way of setting goals for developers and measuring the result.
measuring LOC/day isn't a very valuable metric Then I'd get a "negative bonus" because I often clean up terrible copy/paste code, thus reducing LOC.
When it comes to bugfixes, have fun with Dilbert:
http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Bug%20Bonus[^]
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Matt Maynard wrote: Bonuses should be based on an objective measurement
This of course means that you must in fact be able to measure something.
And it means that you must be able to demonstrate that those are relevant to actual productivity.
It also means that you must normalize it some how.
Matt Maynard wrote: I don't want to base it on the number of bugs fixed, because that means the bonus will decline as the products (two websites) improve,
The ratio of bugs to lines of code.
More code means more bugs. More care means less bugs but maybe less code.
In terms of QA you could also include ratio of customer reported bugs versus in house discovered bugs.
Matt Maynard wrote: and it will also decline if bugs go undiscovered (and therefore, unfixed).
Err..undiscovered bugs are not really bugs. If it doesn't impact the customers then it doesn't matter.
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Senior developers say that, Communication skills is as important as Programming skills to complete a project.
For example:
If we don't take requirements properly, we can't develop a software properly or we need to do rework again.
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Communication skills have nothing to do with programming. It is about how you give information to otheres and how you receive information from them. Training in communication skills is a fairly specific subject and you should research courses available in your local area.
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Very poor communication skils also puts you in difficult situation. But it is not true always. One must be good at both communication as well s technical skills.
Yes, especially as you are into requirements gathering then you must have to understand their business perspective. Especially when you speak with foreign clients, you must able to understand their accent and also business terms.
Try to read more articles on requirement gathering or else read about requirements of specific product what you are dealing now. This is atleast give you a rough idea of what needs to be done and also helps you to get a quick idea if clients speaks any of the words that you read.
And don't worry much about it. Its just a part of work life 
Regards,
Ganesh
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Yes both things are required. If you will face problem for communicating other then you will not able to understand the requirements and work related issues which will hamper your work. Most priority is your technology if you strong in this fields then you can manage in communication.
Take spoken English course and keep practice with friends then you can improve yourself
Sankarsan Parida
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I suggest along with spoken English course, start watching English movies (First with subtitles).
Join a chat room or something. Frequent chatting in English (and only in English) will make you think in the same language.
Think in English, the language in which you think also molds your communication skills
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