If you haven't been following this series, it's basically a journal through 100 days of code in which I desired to get moving through completing the FreeCodeCamp curriculum and I started by resetting my progress completely, thus forcing myself to go through their HTML and CSS learning paths again. I believe they added the accessibility and responsive sections and possibly even the CSS Grid and Flexbox stuff after I had done it the first time. I think that the HTML and CSS basics were plenty usable (but I've had some practice, I don't know what one might feel if they were starting from scratch). The built-in IDE and live page are a nice touch, though I wish it had some intellisense built in.
I struggled with the curriculum when it came to the accessibility and responsive sections. It would seem that they'd present just a very basic idea, with an exercise to show it. At one point they mentioned, in the last exercise we discussed some tools to help you with this (I believe it was the exercise in accessibility about HSL and colorblindness), and I went back. There were no tools that were discussed. I know that FCC isn't the only player in this game, but I definitely think this was a weak link in their program.
When I started my day, I was hoping to get to the Flexbox section, but I have successfully gotten through everything up to the Projects section. I haven't clicked through the Tribute Page project yet, but I've done it once. If I had never done it, I am not convinced I'd be prepared to do it. Does putting these projects at this point in the material serve the platform? Perhaps it does, it gets people to expand their reading material, searching new sections and participating in the forums - Read-Search-Ask.
The FCC Forums are overwhelming, I rarely feel like I can get my questions answered there and I'm technical, I can't imagine what a new person might feel.
Top comments (1)
I felt the same way for the longest time. I finished their responsive design certification but it was so painstakingly difficult. I had similar experiences with missing links to resources and even worse luck with the testing of projects. It seemed answers to the sections worked when ran outside of their built in IDE but had to be formatted and typed exactly how they wanted for it to pass their algorithm. I eventually did away with FCC and went to Udemy and other avenues of learning.