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Kenneth Myers
16,009 PointsSome advice before starting this course.
I've been a user here for about 6 months and I've done a bunch of the courses (Web dev, java/android, wordpress, now ruby) and so far I have found this course the most disappointing. It feels like there should have been a course between learning ruby and this course, one that breaks down the tools and code we are using here to prepare us for actually making an app.
While I understand that it's good to learn by doing, I am not the only one who feels like this course overloads you by doing too much. In many of the forums of these videos there are people complaining that it's too fast or there is too much and not enough of the code is provided or shown where it is obtained.
I stopped trying to recreate the app halfway through because I realized I had no idea what I was doing other than trying to copy code and make it work. However, that's not learning.
My advice to people starting this course is to go through it twice. Watch it the first time. Don't take notes. Don't try to follow along in your own project. Just watch. If you try to follow along you may find yourself completely lost and constantly rewinding to find out what the instructor is doing. After you've watched the course once, then go back and take notes and/or follow along in your own project. I know that's daunting and will take an excruciatingly long time, but this is an excruciating course. I think this is the best method until this course is revised or a supplementary course is added to the track.
4 Answers
Charlten Oldenkott
5,993 PointsKenneth Myers Thanks for the heads up! I just started this course today, and even though it's extremely easy at the beginning, I feel it's going to get a lot harder and much more confusing
Brad Chellingworth
11,542 PointsI feel there is a missing video here the one that says "Hey, this is what rails is". I'm on the "Rails Development" track and have gone through hours of non rails related content just to get to this and im now back to watching youtube videos trying to understand the things he is doing without explaining.
rspec, scaffolds, active record, database connections and more are just brushed over like we already did a module on it.
I feel really let down here treehouse!
Rachelle Wood
15,362 PointsI thank you for the warning! I took a new look at the course material. It looks like you need to start with the learn Ruby track before taking the Rails track rather than vice-versa.
BEAU WITKA
20,594 PointsI was going to add a word of warning to the first video as well, as a means of helping other students not make the same mistake I just made, and am happy to see that someone else already has a thread going. Unless you absolutely have to complete this course, perhaps as I did - as part of the Rails Dev track, I strongly suggest not wasting your time with it.
I am a fan of Treehouse but they seriously dropped the ball on this one. Sadly, I struggled and tried to keep up with Jason for half of the course before deciding to sit back, watch him code and try to get as much out of the videos as I could. If you have to complete this course, that's my advice: just watch and learn what you can. DO NOT try to follow along. The pace of this course is insanely fast and there's really not much instruction going on.