I tried thoughtbot's learnprime, online training material months ago. I never signed up for the paid version but viewed the sample portions of the videos, but always had it on the back burner for things to do. I recently got a marketing email form Ben Orenstein stating I could start the learnprime program at 50% off.
The course is at steep price in my mind, $49 at the mid-tier. I chose to go ahead an try out the program for a month. thoughtbot is a well respected organization and I have always been pleased with their blogpost and podcast. I also have enjoyed the teaching Ben, mainly from viewed conferences talks on Youtube.
I was surprised to find out that the course did not meet my expectations initially. I actually did not even complete workshop before casting judgment, which was unfair. I only ran through the first portion of the iOS workshop and viewed the first half of the Intermediate Rails.
I admit I initially did not give the courses a chance and only skimmed through, but after just about finishing the Intermediate Rails videos. I find that they are worth the amount I paid (which was 50% off). The Rails tutorial was out of date using Rails 3.12.2 and I had issues getting it up and running with the recommend version. I finally just bundled the latest of everything, including Rails 4.1 and did not have a problem.
I eventually completed viewing all videos in the Intermediate Rails group and plan to rewrite the app a little each day. I also started the TDD app/workshop which I will probably complete this week, since it is smaller. Thanks to VLC and the ability to download the video, I have been watching all the videos 2x speed.
My final conclusion after viewing the videos is the content phenomenal and worth the money paid, I however would not recommend it to beginner or anyone just dabbling. I believe the content is great for someone with quite a bit of Rails personal experience in multiple apps/tutorials. I actually review some things I learned at work from others devs including, Single Table Inheritance and Object Oriented Design. I even saw areas of improvement I could bring into my work app, by limiting the dependencies within the controllers.
What I liked about the content is they take time to explain the best practices of Rails and concepts from Sandi Metz's POODR. I couldn't find it better timing since I have been binging on her past Rails talks, now that I have finished her book. I highly recommend her teaching and recommend watching the follow talk at Rails Conf 2013. It is basically a tease of whats in her book.
The TDD workshop is definitely a must for anyone looking to be hired as a Rails dev. Not every company practices TDD, but it is the best walkthrough of Unit and Integration testing I have seen. Even if you write your test last, the way test lines up right with the recommendations of chapter 9 in the POODR book. This workshop is $15 on it's own and definitely worth money.
This brings to my observation, the cost of learnprime is high but they offer some high level content, which I never took into consideration. The weekly iteration is awesome videos delivered every week, and some info hot topics in the industry to stay cutting edge. Again this is all info for established devs and ones close to becoming established.
I am still on the fence to keep my membership for the iterations alone, as I feel I can finish both workshops before the end of the month. I am definitely appreciative for the content they have provided in the course; but I have no plans in completing any others but very interested in viewing all the iterations.
No comments:
Post a Comment