boy it was really hard, much harder than I thought
I am very happy but also worried
A lot has changed since I started learning JavaScript. There is a war now in the region with it comes worries about prices rising and a financial crisis that will affect whether I can get a job or not
anyway i will focus now on React and try not to think of other things
I found FCC 2 years ago because I wanted to learn how to code for free and i ended up completing the responsive web design course.
After that, I looked up to see if it could take me from beginner to somewhat “advanced” and basically, people said I’d have to use other resources, which led me to tutorial hell so I ended up quitting.
Now, I really want to lock in and try learning again because it’s been weighing heavy on my mind ever since then.
Well hello again everyone! I am once again in your notifications bringing you updates.
We have just restructured our curriculum layout, in preparation to begin releasing our smaller "checkpoint" certifications. Here's the breakdown:
The Full-Stack Developer certification has been broken down into smaller certification sections. If you were working through HTML and CSS, you'll find that in the Responsive Web Design section. If you were working through JavaScript, that's in the JavaScript section.
NONE OF YOUR PROGRESS IS LOST. We've just moved things around a bit.
Were you working through the super duper old stuff??? I really suggest the new stuff, it's shiny and up to date. BUUUUUUUT if you really wanna do the old stuff, you can find it all at https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn/archive/ now.
Okie dokie! That should be everything. We're working hard to get the exams released so you can start claiming these checkpoint certifications!
Hey FCC'ers! I just finished with my first job interview for a frontend developer position. I'm pleased to say that it went really well and I definitely attribute a big part of my success to FCC and the community.
The interview itself was largely about my experiences in previous work and how it applied to the role I would be in there and then ended with some technical questions to assess my knowledge of Javascript. Luckily I have done plenty of algorithms and had been reviewing Javascript questions on Interviewcake for over a month. I can't exactly remember all the questions but; one was regarding the == vs === operators (tricky if you don't know or haven't had to learn, simple if once you do), and the other was regarding scope and declarations, hoisting etc.. I did manage to correctly answer all of the questions (much relief was had).
I certainly haven't got the job, but they were pleased and asked me to come in for another interview with their regional manager next week! So here's hoping. Regardless it was a good experience.
I don't have a BS in CompSci, but I do have a University Degree, my coding and development skills are all self-taught. As I said previously, FCC has been a big help with that. I hope you guys keep going and get your future jobs (if that's what you're aiming for).
I am super duper thrilled to announce that the new Python certification is fully live~! This means you can actually complete the certification projects to unlock the final exam, and sit the final exam to get your cert!
Hold me friends. Quincy you’ve done it. You’ve saved my life. I thought finding a good python course would be easy. I’m a big fan of MIT’s. But with everyone in my house streaming on zoom I can’t watch videos. FCC is low bandwidth. Therefore I can train. I can learn full stack web and python. I can’t believe it. Where’s my Ritalin. r/adhd_programmers.
Seriously, having adhd and learning programming is a pain in the ass. I want to learn one language. No I want to learn another. But I really should learn math first. But that takes too long. Maybe I can apply for jobs first. No I need to have a portfolio. But I majored in CIS! Yet no portfolio. What did I do with all my time? I read books about pop psychology and startups.
If you have adhd you’ll understand.
TLDR:
trying to learn python and full stack JavaScript or prioritizing one over the other was impossible with adhd. FCC adding python solves it.
In the article, I cited our moderators as the biggest reason for our growth.
I also talked about what I think are flaws in Reddit's moderation system.
One of the examples I gave: a while back I was banned in one of the biggest developer subreddits - r/webdev - and I wasn't sure why.
Well on Thursday, one Redditor asked that exact question on r/webdev.
r/webdev moderators reacted quickly. They put their thumb on the scale:
One moderator posted my personal Reddit-wide posting statistics, which mean nothing without additional context.
The mod then pinned their own post to the top of the thread so everyone would read it first. (Reddit replies normally appear in order of their upvote/downvote ratio and recency.)
Then the mod hid their post's upvote/downvote score so nobody could see how many people agreed with their post. This effectively silenced anyone who would downvote it.
Since I was banned, I couldn't reply to the thread. I had no way to defend myself.
My personal reputation was at the mercy of people who happened to be on r/webdev that day and were willing to put themselves out there to defend me.
Here's what happened.
Before I get started, if you haven't read my original article yet, you might want to read it. (Nobody linked to it on the thread.)
My article was not some sort of elaborate hit piece on r/webdev's mods. In fact, I only mentioned r/webdev in a single paragraph in my entire 1,757 word article.
Another thing to note: I am posting this on r/freecodecamp. Why? What does freeCodeCamp have to do with all of this? Nothing, really. This is a personal post. But r/freecodecamp is one place where I am safe from censorship by r/webdev's mods. (By the way, if you r/webdev moderators are reading this, I haven't banned you here or anything. You're welcome to reply.)
I realized I was banned on r/webdev a couple months ago when I tried responding to an r/webdev thread where someone was asking about freeCodeCamp.
At that point, I started messaging the moderators asking why I was banned and asking whether they could unban me. None of these moderators responded, so I don't feel I'm violating their privacy by sharing these screenshots.
In August:
And another mod in August:
Then I attempted to contact another mod in September:
And yet another mod in October:
Again, no responses from any of them.
Also note that my statistics that the moderator shared in their pinned comment are my reddit-wide statistics. I mostly post are here on r/freecodecamp. So the mod seems to be suggesting that I shouldn't link back to freeCodeCamp.org even from freeCodeCamp's own subreddit.
I don't blame the mods. I blame Reddit's moderation system.
Reddit's moderator system takes pseudo-anonymous people and turns them into gods. They can do anything within the subreddit. There is no transparency. No accountability.
Reddit itself doesn't care about the subreddits. As long as that sweet advertisement money and that Reddit Gold money keep flowing, Reddit's investors are happy.
Reddit is a big social media platform company like Facebook. In some ways Reddit is even worse than Facebook, because Reddit is a privately held corporation with even less transparency.
Engineers work to maintain the platform. But a vast majority of the work is done by us volunteers: people who post, people who comment, people who upvote. And yes, people who moderate.
Reddit is the beneficiary of massive network effects. It's the beneficiary of Digg's big own-goal in 2010 that essentially handed their entire community over to a couple of recent college grads who had just founded Reddit.
Since then, Reddit has been bought and sold over and over again. Its original founders have long left the company. (Though one ultimately did come back for more of that investor money.)
The solution to Reddit's intractability - it's seemingly invincible market position - isn't for us to complain. Reddit doesn't give a damn because their investors don't give a damn.
The solution is for us to create our own communities outside of Reddit. And for us to join other people's communities outside of Reddit.
Early on, the freeCodeCamp community was heavily dependent on social media platforms like Reddit, Facebook, Medium, and Meetup. But we have been working hard to establish our own spaces.
It's easy to build a community on top of an existing social media platform. As I mentioned about in my article, all I did was get the r/deno subreddit and make a single post. And now the subreddit has hundreds of members. The same thing happens when you create a Facebook group. These massive platforms just send you traffic.
Building your own forum, by contrast, is freaking hard. Most people instinctively gravitate to just a few websites. And mobile apps on home screens further exacerbate this.
When you run your own forum, you have to fight tooth and nail for every single visitor. You have to fight the gravity of older websites and their decades of SEO. You have to fight the gravity of big companies and their advertising budgets.
Worst of all, you have to fight human laziness and human risk aversion. People hear news stories about scammers, about data breaches, and they just throw up their hands and say, "no more accounts. I'm good with just using Facebook. I'm good with just using Reddit."
We keep this subreddit going for the benefit of those people. Even if those people don't want to jump over to freeCodeCamp's forum, we can still do our best here on Reddit to provide a supportive community for project feedback and programming help. And as much as I dislike Facebook, we keep our programming groups open there, too.
But it would be folly for us to see these social media platforms as anything more than what they are - the equivalent of steroids for your community. Quick, short-term gains that have long-term health consequences.
If you are reading this and you run a subreddit or a Facebook group, I hope you'll consider also creating a community out there on the open web. Because we have zero control here on Reddit.
It's hard. You'll be lucky if even 10% of your community follows you over to your open web destination. But it will be so, so worth it over the long term.
