Like many of us here, I found the jump to Basic Algorithm Scripting a bit to steep in the JS track. So I decided to take a break from it and look for other resources to supplement FCC.
Whether it’s books, or TeamTreehouse, or Udacity or any other one, what have been the most resourceful coding aids for you?
I could not really just post one course since each of these helped me so much.
The Web Developer Bootcamp by Colt Steele on Udemy is what I used before I started FreeCodeCamp. Other people from here and on the udemy website it has 160,797 students enrolled with an average rating of 4.7.
JavaScript: From Fundamentals to Functional JS on Pluralsight is also another amazing course. It is taught in the format of a classroom setting where people ask for help when they get stuck on something. At first I didn’t really like the format but they taught so many topics that I was unfamiliar with at the time having only done The Web Developer Bootcamp and FreeCodeCamp
Clean Code: Writing Code for Human by Cory House on Pluralsight because… writing clean code is important. I have been working on a game for around a year and now that the game has thousands of lines of codes, some of which I have not looked at any half a year, I am still able to manage things because I always aim to write clean code. The FreeCodeCamp channel also has some clean code videos which are more javascript specific.
Building Applications with React and Redux in ES6 by Cory House on Pluralsight. I feel every person learning react on this site should go through this course at least once since it blows away everything. The whole course is just building a single project but since that project is built in a way closer to what a real job would do it helps you learn a lot of new things. My only problem with the course is that it is not very beginner friendly.
I only tried online resources so far, and I can say they worked very well for me.
I recommend Codecademy and SoloLearn. They are excellent sites to learn on.
Cheers and good luck,
Hanna
I thought this series of books are just an introduction to js and it’s gonna teach you the basic of javascript language like the syntax etc…
But no, these books teaches you a lot of things that is going on behind the curtain, and it really emphasises on how and why instead of what.
I am finding it a bit challenging, but really interesting books to begin with,.
In between the HTML/CSS section and the Javascript section I did the first 4 weeks of Harvard’s CS50/Introduction of Computer Science course. They use C as their learning language and it took me 4 weeks of working on it for multiple hours a day to get through that material. It kicked my butt, but I learned a lot. In fact, when I got tp the algorithm section here at FCC, most of them were pretty easy because I had learned most of what I needed in CS50. It gave great core education on thinking like a computer. It was very hard, but worth it. I hope to go back and finish it at some point.
We all learn differently, but for myself what worked very well for me was to stick to the FCC curriculum more or less as presented, but I very often stopped to search topics and read widely from many different sources on the same thing, sometimes for days.
I found this method smoothed out the quality inconsistencies I was finding. Some answers I got back in my searches were excellent, some were pretty poor, and some were right down wrong, but by taking the time to research a topic I think I usually ended up with a good understanding of what I was interested in, while getting many people’s takes on the topic.
I find relying on a single book or two, or a video, to give me the answers I was looking for was not nearly as effective.
As mentioned above, Colt Steele’s course is great. I had problems with JS basic section as well, before I learned the same material with Colt. It took me exactly 10 hours to go through basic section again, and then I was even able to do basic algorithms. But he doesn’t cover things in FCC curriculum after basics, so I’ll have to look for another supplementary resource…
Some sites I’ve used in my learning journey.
w3schools – if I just want a quick example, forgot how to do it, forgot the syntax, quick glance of what’s available.
Mozilla Developer network - while complete, it can be very complex sometimes… giving more than I what I ask for, which I don’t always want all the time.
Udemy courses – from just a few select people… I wait until it goes on sale for $10 then I pounce on it. A lot of the free ones are crap though. So be selective.
Youtube – some gems here from a few select people.
Books – very rarely I buy REAL books. It’s expensive. But when I do pay for it, I do get a lot out of the book. Maybe I’m trying to get back my $40-$50 I spent on it. This tends to be the best-bang-for-the-buck for me, where I learn a lot.
Dash – this is an OSX program, where I have all the documentation for every possible thing right on my desktop. These are the official documentation from the websites, packaged for convenience right on your desktop.
https://zealdocs.org for other systems
W3Schools and CodeAcademy for more learning (CA has good react lessons)
And don’t forget the Gitter chat ! even if now it’s deeply hidden in the settings, it is still very valuable !
Would you mind suggesting a few of the Udemy courses you found worthwhile?
I really benefitted from Antony Alicea’s Javascript: Understanding the Weird Parts.
Yes, I have that.
Anthony Alicea
Codeit 24/7
Dr. Jeff Cornwall
Mosh Hamedani
Dan Wahlin
I second this resource! It really is a great book and will give you a deep understand of some topics that have historically been hard to grasp for Javascript developers.
This is also a really great resource too. It’s starting to become a standard for self-taught developers.
Thank you kindly.
One other course I would suggest for people starting out is Brad Schiff’s Git a Web Developer Job.
It greatly improved my CSS, introduced me to a number of useful technologies, and helped to make using Git an unthinking habit.
Agree… Also every time I saw David J. Malan on stage I get excited because you clearly see how much he enjoys teaching and how much he loves coding.
I want to become people like him one day. His passion for coding alone is inspiring.
SoloLearn
Yeah it’s really been fun. I finished up the front end section on free code camp and I’m working through CS50 before I start the back end.
good luck! 
