Matt Gibb sent around the following on the 80k alumni list, and said I could pass it on—thought people reading this post might be interested:
“A couple of people have asked for recommendations on the quickest way to
learn. I have a limited perspective, but I have spent the last 8 years
developing, have attended one bootcamp (Insight Data Science), which was
per unit time the single most valuable educational experience I have ever
had, and I have been able to visit many of the top bootcamps in the Bay:
HackReactor, AppAcademy, Hackbright, Makersquare etc. I know many of the
founders personally and/or have taken investment from them. Anyway, here’s
my 2 cents that I believe will be helpful, based on what I have seen work.
Take it with a hefty pinch of salt.
If you are going to learn one web development language, learn
Javascript. It is hacky, but it is the only browser language (ignoring
clojurescript, scala.js etc. which you might consider tackling much later),
you can cobble together the whole stack in it: frontend, backend (node,
meteor, sails.js), database (mongo, rethinkdb, firebase). HackReactor have
a JS-only syllabus, and are one of the top schools in the world.
If you are going to learn one sql database, learn Postgres.
If you are going to learn one frontend framework, learn React.js.
Angular’s source code and design are a bit messy and you will ship a
faster, more reliable product with React. With React Native, you will soon
be able to deliver iOS and Android apps in too.
If you are going to learn one data/machine learning language, learn
Python (numpy, scipy, pandas, scikit-learn).
I have found codeschool.com really helpful, but I know there are many other
great resources out there which I haven’t played with.
I would recommend going to a (well-regarded) bootcamp over self study,
because you will make progress at about 3 times the rate for a few reasons:
The courses are designed to focus aggressively on the most
important/high ROI things to learn. When I was getting started, I found I
would just be diffusing through this unknown space of related technologies
with little idea what was most important, and ending up learning a load of
unimportant trivia along the way.
You will end up stuck on a missing semicolon or closing bracket for 10
minutes, not 2 days.
You will be surrounded by smart, determined people that will push you
to be your best and give you valuable solicited (and unsolicited!) feedback
Every day you will be immersed in creative ideas and evolving products
that will influence your own
You can ask any question you can imagine and almost certainly get an
informed answer quickly
For example to automatically test a batch of solar cells on performance,
match supply and demand on the electricity grid, help a doctor find a tumor
in an MRI image, process a lot of money traffic. These things do not
typically happen on a consumer website.
Learning to code will allow you to do all these things. Coincidentally,
part of my PhD was in in image segmentation/registration, I am building a
real-time Dutch auction now to drive down costs for students, and the
solutions/skills required are much closer to web dev than you might
think. Don’t
worry just get started :)”
Matt Gibb sent around the following on the 80k alumni list, and said I could pass it on—thought people reading this post might be interested: “A couple of people have asked for recommendations on the quickest way to learn. I have a limited perspective, but I have spent the last 8 years developing, have attended one bootcamp (Insight Data Science), which was per unit time the single most valuable educational experience I have ever had, and I have been able to visit many of the top bootcamps in the Bay: HackReactor, AppAcademy, Hackbright, Makersquare etc. I know many of the founders personally and/or have taken investment from them. Anyway, here’s my 2 cents that I believe will be helpful, based on what I have seen work. Take it with a hefty pinch of salt.
If you are going to learn one web development language, learn Javascript. It is hacky, but it is the only browser language (ignoring clojurescript, scala.js etc. which you might consider tackling much later), you can cobble together the whole stack in it: frontend, backend (node, meteor, sails.js), database (mongo, rethinkdb, firebase). HackReactor have a JS-only syllabus, and are one of the top schools in the world.
If you are going to learn one sql database, learn Postgres.
If you are going to learn one frontend framework, learn React.js. Angular’s source code and design are a bit messy and you will ship a faster, more reliable product with React. With React Native, you will soon be able to deliver iOS and Android apps in too.
If you are going to learn one data/machine learning language, learn Python (numpy, scipy, pandas, scikit-learn).
After the above:
If you are going to learn one Big Data language, learn Scala (spark, akka, http://www.reactivemanifesto.org/, https://www.coursera.org/course/reactive)
I have found codeschool.com really helpful, but I know there are many other great resources out there which I haven’t played with.
I would recommend going to a (well-regarded) bootcamp over self study, because you will make progress at about 3 times the rate for a few reasons:
The courses are designed to focus aggressively on the most important/high ROI things to learn. When I was getting started, I found I would just be diffusing through this unknown space of related technologies with little idea what was most important, and ending up learning a load of unimportant trivia along the way.
You will end up stuck on a missing semicolon or closing bracket for 10 minutes, not 2 days.
You will be surrounded by smart, determined people that will push you to be your best and give you valuable solicited (and unsolicited!) feedback
Every day you will be immersed in creative ideas and evolving products that will influence your own
You can ask any question you can imagine and almost certainly get an informed answer quickly
Learning to code will allow you to do all these things. Coincidentally, part of my PhD was in in image segmentation/registration, I am building a real-time Dutch auction now to drive down costs for students, and the solutions/skills required are much closer to web dev than you might think. Don’t worry just get started :)”