This is Treehouse's worst course

Hopefully the staff will respond. In the meantime, here's my two-pennies worth:

I think I did this course a long time ago, but I can't remember what my impressions were. I'm not doubting you have a point though. Here's something really important though: when I using Treehouse a lot learning Ruby and Rails, I also relied on the forums and expected answers all the time, and when they didn't come, I got pissed off.

However, I now know that you should get into the habit of using StackOverflow as much as possible to ask questions, after googling though. The procedure should be roughly as follows;

1. Google the error code. Literally copy/paste. Sometimes you need to take out a few letters that you know are only specific to your app though.

2. Do more Googling and reading.

3. Post question on Stack Overflow.

You often get answers really quick on there.

Try to embrace these things as an opportunity to practice your own troubleshooting, but I do understand the frustration sometimes.

I actually find the course to be REALLY good! This is on par with how coding is supposed to be. Write one test, make if fail, then write code to make it pass. Move to the next test question. I was really disappointed that most online tutorials do not teach like this , by way of test-driven-development, when in real life, this is how it's usually done. So, I was pretty surprised to find that Jason was doing a whole TDD on rails. I was hoping more courses would be like this. It's sorta hard to learn it this way, when you don't have the fluency to write basic code yet. But TDD is supposed to make your code more efficient, b/c it drives you to write the minimum code to make your program be functional. This is sorta hard b/c the MVC framework, which Rails is requries you to know a bit of how capybara works (which is what Jason is using when he writes visit/click_link/fill_in etc. He is writing test from the perspective of a client viewing the browser. This isn't a basic course at all, but there are several layers of things going on, and I can see why it would be frustrating to learn it this way.

i honestly hate testing the most, but its also the one thing that has helped me be a better more streamlined coder. i still find writing tests much harder than writing code. there's definetily a skill separate to coding to it, and more, there are a ton of gem to help you do them, but you have to learn a bit about each gem, and know when to use them. that's why i generally find it bothersome, yet, b/c it is so good, and strongproofs your code against changes, I find it i need to be good at it. i generally write test first, or do exercises where i can work with a test, like exercism.io, where you write code against a built in test. i would highly recommend everyone to do that.

i found writing tests for app frameworks like rails to be harder, b/c not only are you testing for ruby code, from the perspective of a programmer, but also html/css code, from the perspective of a user. i'm better at the ruby code testing, but not as comfortable with the user/feature test. so that's why i'm loving this tutorial, and it's been my fave so far.

this vimeo is a great intro into how testing helps you write a nice lean code. it goes through three exercises. https://vimeo.com/129974441

yes....hoping to be an employable and capable person someday. and as i've looked into several job postings already, most want programmers with strong testing skills. that's why i am here :-)

also, i bought the rails tutorial from pragmatic studio, and found it to be really good. there are a couple of hiccups, b/c they are using rails version from 2013, but you can quickly figure stuff out by searching on the web (all skills we need to acquire to be resourceful anyway). but the program really does an excellent job on showing how an MVC works. it has excellent illustration and relates code to go along with the diagrams to help you know where you are, and where to go next. my understanding is that the couple that teaches that course were the first ones in the US to teach rails...so, they have an intricate knowledge of it, and do a great job.

I find that learning from several sources is the best way to go, and so I'm really enjoying Jason's approach here. But I would be a confused bat had I not had a good basic knowledge coming into it (which, again, I learned from another tutorial).

I completely agree. Based on previous courses I was really looking forward to this course, but I got very much disappointed. Also with the other ones related to Ruby Rails. They should update stuff. That's for sure.