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Ask HN: Would you want to do projects and get personalised feedback?

10 points by manibatra ↗ HN
Hi everyone, So Udacity is a really awesome place to learn coding, and has projects you can complete and get personalised feedback if you’re on the subscription plan ($200 a month). But it is on the little more expensive side.

If there was a platform where you could solely complete projects whilst using the resources that are already available to learn coding (like Codecademy, Udemy, Udacity’s free courses)- and get personalised feedback for the projects, free and some complex paid ones ($5-$30 for each review/feedback), would that be something anyone would be interested in?

Edit :

1. Are there any other fields apart from programming ( design, language learning, maybe product development, management, etc ) for which you would want to do similar projects?

2. Would you be interested in more advanced programming projects, introductory ones or both?

12 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 38.1 ms ] thread
myroon5
Yes
manibatra
Great to hear! A couple of questions :

1. How would you describe your programming level..beginner, intermediate, advanced or any other way you would want to describe it..

2. Would you interested in doing projects in some other field of interest like maybe UX design, language learning, etc. ?

myroon5
Undergraduate CS senior. I would probably most likely use it for code reviewing larger side projects like Android/iOS apps or larger Web apps.
fiatjaf
Yes, if the feedback came from an interested person I would pay $5 for it. I don't want a "specialist" or some consultant, just a person which would look at my project instead of just saying "blablabla ok".
manibatra
Exactly "personalised" being a key word. Any other areas of interests for which you would like to have such projects? (Design, Language learning? ) . Thanks for the reply :)
fiatjaf
I'm just thinking about apps or internet services.
karmacondon
I think it would be interesting to find a way to put the study projects to practical use. For example, look for incomplete feature requests on open source projects in various languages and critique the students on their implementations. Or find people who need small website work done and set up a dev environment where the students can learn on a real project, and then get feedback on their work. A kind of practical learn by doing, with a teacher.
ivan_ah
> 1. Are there any other fields apart from programming...

The personalized feedback could be really good for learning math. You could develop an "async" model for learning, where the student works on a proof (on their own) and tutor checks in once in a while to give tips and add corrections.

Note for basic arithmetic and algebra, the computer could check the answers automatically, but for proofs and more advanced/subtle arguments, the tutor will serve as the "math compiler" checking the student's work. Here's the discussion where the notion of a "math compiler" came up https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11267877

manibatra
Awesome thanks for the link! Love how it applies to mathematics. "learn by doing" that is so true not just for mathematics but for almost every field. And that is why I find Udacity's model of projects and getting feedback on them quite fascinating.

You can study, watch videos, read, do exercises but doing a project/proofs from the ground up can teach one a lot of skills that they directly implement in a work environment. Thanks again.

tkosan
I think teaching fundamental mathematics to programmers using ITS (Intelligent Tutoring System) technology is a very promising idea. For example, an ITS that is capable of doing step-by-step elementary algebra equation solving would be able to teach this subject, and it would also be able to provide instant feedback which is much more detailed than a human would typically provide.

I have been working on a step-by-step elementary algebra equation solver for a few years now, and here is an example of what I have working so far:

http://p1.ssucet.org/tkosan/misc/mathfuture/steps/solve_equa...

If you are interested in discussing the possibility of teaching programmers fundamental mathematics using technology like this, feel free to contact me (my email address is in my profile).