Show HN: LearnStreet - The Best Place to Learn How to Code (learnstreet.com)

Some criticism: You should show JS syntax errors instead just showing a generic error message. I understand you don't want to scare newbies away with compiler errors, but your solution just makes debugging more difficult.

You should show syntax errors, but translate the default JS error messages into something friendlier. Codecademy does this for their intro lessons.

Looks like a great product, though! Keep it up.

In any case, I'm still plugging away, but I have learned about doing basic math, variables, etc etc quite a lot. I'll keep going but, in the end, what I want to make is a fully functioning and actually USEFUL web app that LOOKS and FEELS professional.

So many of these online resource just take you half way. They try to be SO user friendly and approachable, but in doing so the tutorials are filled with too much useless fluff. "We are different because we make learning FUN!"

Or, the tutorials are just far too advanced.

If you want to understand what the computers does and on what level you just need to start reading books or going to courses

Books about algorithms and data structures (Cormen et al) Any book introductory to Operating Systems is a must (Tanenbaum or Silberschatz operating systems)

It manages to cover material fairly quickly and talk you through getting a working webapp up and running (and deployed!) while still taking the time to explain the little things that a more experienced dev might find obvious.

Instead what worked really well for me is to find a practical problem that I wanted to solve (maybe with the goal of making money from it). It turns out that just about any interesting project that you dream up for yourself will have aspects that are outside of your current knowledge/ability. Then as soon as you hit these parts start looking for reference materials, documentation or tutorials specifically related to this problem. Before you know it you're learning new stuff.

And the upshot of this approach is, that if you stick with it you may end up with a functional product at the end, which you can sell.

Also read other people's code. I find it really humbling to read well crafted code. It also motivates me to continue refining my own code.

It won't teach you how to use any frameworks. It won't teach you how to write a particular language (well, you'll learn a bit of Scheme, but that's a by-product). Instead, it will teach you to think computationally, which is a far more valuable skill.

I can't emphasise enough how much that book improved my programming. Everyone should read it. If you read that book beginning to end and do all the exercises, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that you will instantly be in the top 1-10% of programmers worldwide.

[1] http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html

Their front-end, however, remains Ruby. The link you posted is just about search infrastructure.

[1]: http://twitter.github.com/

The problem that I see with your approach is that it is really hard to explain certain concepts to people without any experience. For example, if I wanted to explain the difference between Java and Python, I would likely have to get into the difference between static and dynamic typing. I can't think of a way to explain a type system to someone who can't write a basic program.

Another concern I have is that too comprehensive a resource could actually teach bad habits. If I would have learned from one source, I wouldn't have learned how to debug via Google. I can't tell you how many times knowing how to answer questions with a search engine has saved me!

Great comment though - I bet the developers love reading feedback like this!!

The problem is I see this knowledge break when 1) it is applied to a more difficult problem that 2) is outside of the scope of the provided loop.

Spending time understanding the conceptual elements (when, where, why) before the how doesn't give immediate results, but it saves many headaches down the road and makes future tools / languages much easier to learn.

Instead, you teach development by having people start coding as soon as possible. You get them playing with the code, manipulating values, and seeing the outcome. Once they see that they're creating something and they enjoy doing it, that's when you explain it to them. Khan Academy has taken this approach and it has proven extremely effective in getting children to start coding.

It's really basic game theory - you don't have to explain the entire backstory or all the controls to get someone playing a game. You drop them in a situation and go "OH SHIT YOU'RE UNDER ATTACK - PRESS X TO ATTACK." You give them one instruction and get them hooked. After that, you can then go through the basic tutorials that explain the menu system and or what numbers mean or how you level up or whatever. But the point is to explain things to them as they need to know them and not before.

The point is to get people coding as quickly as possible. If someone has to read 60 pages of introductory text, they're not going to do it. It's asking for too much up front.

I mean it doesn't sound too good if you say, 'oh I've learned to use Python' and someone asks you to show them & you have to show them inside of the learnstreet tutorial as you don't know any other way.

I do think it's great people are investing time and effort into this area but it just needs some context so that people can actually walk away with skills from it.