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Mahesh K
Mahesh K

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Where to Learn new tech skills Online?

I am into frontend development and I try to find genuine learning resource for updating myself with changing skill set in the market. So this is a discussion topic for those who are trying to find resources which are worth checking out for frontend and backend skills.

I have joined Teamtreehouse in past. And they have moved to their own cloud IDE and their scope limits to Mac. Their Content is not meant for anything serious usage. It just doesn't feel satisfying doing their trails.

Lynda seems to be not updating the content for new frameworks or even between the new updates in frameworks. After Linkedin acquisition they too moved to cloud IDE on some courses.

Pluarlsight is one that I tried for 2 month trial available with Microsoft last December. It has older content and no updates on frontend and backend topics.

Wes Bos and Azat's courses are literally less focused on fundamentals and also too much commentary and less code.

Udemy has lot of spam content mostly stolen videos and piracy content being resold by some authors. Skillshare also tackles really less quality content.

What I have not tried so far -

  • Safari Online Oreilly courses
  • Frontend Masters
  • PacktPub Courses
  • TutsPlus Envato
  • SpringBoard

Any place you refer for courses and training?

Top comments (11)

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yaser profile image
Yaser Al-Najjar • Edited

Forget about Coursera, edX... etc, they just bring (sh**y university system) into the (lovely online self-learning world).

I have tried EVERY SINGLE e-learning out there (I seriously tried a list of about 50 websites one by one)... I would say Pluralsight is the best.

And on some specific topics, you gotta find the best instructor for each topic, examples:

  1. C# & ASP (basics, intermediate, advanced), Scott Allen Pluralsight: app.pluralsight.com/profile/author...

  2. Design Patterns in C#, Dimitri udemy: udemy.com/design-patterns-csharp-d...

  3. Python & Django, Kenneth Love: teamtreehouse.com/tracks/exploring...

That being said, what's the topic you're looking for?

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maheshkale profile image
Mahesh K

I am mostly looking at Javascript and Data science.

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yaser profile image
Yaser Al-Najjar

I don't know what you wanna do with JS, is it frontend dev? cuz I have never heard that JS and Data Science go together, I heard about R & Python going with DS (I don't know a lot about DS).

This ES6 course is really good:

app.pluralsight.com/library/course...

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theoutlander profile image
Nick Karnik

JS is been used for DS lately. I would recommend getting up-to-speed with it. However, it is always nice to have Python as your backup language for DS/ML.

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yaser profile image
Yaser Al-Najjar

Ah... js is eating the world man, with no typing :D

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theoutlander profile image
Nick Karnik

The only downside is that you have to know your way around CPU intensive tasks. The biggest issue with JS is that the Math engine is not as powerful/accurate on floating-point operations.

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garwin4j profile image
Garwin Pryce

Yeah, I think if you can find it what you need on Pluralsight, it has a greater chance of being good quality.

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bgadrian profile image
Adrian B.G. • Edited

I learn in layers:

  1. Fundamentals,
  2. Specifics
  3. Latest stuff and real examples

1 . I don't know any good ones (front-end is not my focus), but have you tried books? They are the best resource type for fundamentals. There are some online (like eloquentjavascript), and most of them are in digital format too.

2 . For frameworks, for me at least, their official documentation is enough, once you know the concepts is just a matter of finding the right function and its parameters to do your work.

3 . Youtube has tens of free yearly conferences, including ~5 JS Confs, CSS Confs, hardware, even one for programming languages designs. This is where you find specific examples, solution to real dev problems and how the theory meets the practice.

Other similar websites (do not know if they have something front-end specific):

  • coursera
  • IBM training (I've done a few small free courses and their quality was good)
  • Udacity
  • Standord and MIT online free courses, mainly for CS fundamentals
  • edx.com
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perigk profile image
Periklis Gkolias

My 2 cents:

Edx has good and quality material. Most of the courses are a collaboration between companies and top universities.

Coursersa, is good, but you can find really mediocre material too. Depends the course.

Udacity: Used to be my favorite. Though during the last years, they care more about looking like TV stars on camera and sound cool, than providing value to the customers.

Udemy: The mother of contrast. Some great courses, tons of mediocre material. Thats because the barrier to become a teacher is really small. Some courses dont even have subtitles, so if the instructor is bad at speaking English...you just lost 10 dollars.

Scrimba: Short, to the point courses, and most of them free.

Safari books: I havent tried it but I have heard great feedback. Live training and early book access is a very attractive feature to me. Alas, it is a bit expensive.

Packt: I am a frequent customer. I like most of the books I have bought, they make great offers from time to time (eg 80% discounts) but I have no opinion on their video courses. I like the customer service too.

Hope it helps. :)

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juanfrank77 profile image
Juan F Gonzalez

For frontend the dailyui is an invaluable resource I've found. Also if you're into new frameworks there's egghead.io and thinkster.io. Recently I've found a site (codecourse.com) that has some good looking content, haven't really tried much so wouldn't know what their courses are about.

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domitriusclark profile image
Domitrius

I've used Front End Masters and Tylermcginnis.com to land my current job and continue to use them now.

Oh yeah and egghead.io