Is there alternative/easier ways to complete a course? Admin please?

I'm not sure if this constitutes an actual "answer", but you might benefit from some of the comments that have been posted to this other recent question titled The Wall.

Hello Joshua,

I took a look at your profile, and by the looks of it you are doing quite a bit of JavaScript and Python which I am in no way qualified to give any real answers on... Ari Misha I summon thee because i've seen quite a few helpful answers from you, and from your profile it looks like you work with Python and JS alot. HOWEVER in terms of coding, i totally understand the frustration as I am the one who posted, "The Wall" thread.

So far, I've only done a little bit of JavaScript and oh my... that's all i can say because it confused the daylights out of me. However when it comes to HTML and CSS, the more and more i do the courses and the Web Design /Front End Development tracks, the more and more i'm beginning to understand the syntax behind a lot of the language and how it all pieces together. In my opinion, giving up is the easy way out and should be the road you never go down because if you give up when its "easy" what happens when you get to the hard part? I realize lately I've quoted Greg Kaleka a few times but, its really because his answer helped get me over a little speed-bump. He had shared a link to this blog and if you haven't, i strongly suggest you read it over because I managed to get a lot of clicks and ah-ha moments from it!

Maybe try a (in my opinion) more user friendly language to start off with such as HTML /CSS and then go from there! It might help give you a platform to start on and then build up from there with JavaScript /Python. Summoned community wizards.... thoughts?

Hey Joshua,

Welcome to The Wall

Jon has some good suggestions, and I'm going to echo one: if you're interested in web development at all (with Python or Javascript), you really should start by building a good foundation with HTML and CSS. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. It's more approachable. You write text and stuff shows up on the page. You change "blue" to "red", and the whole page changes color. The feedback loop of learning is faster.
2. You can experiment more easily as a beginner. With Python or Javascript, it's way easier to get tripped up by dumb syntax-related stuff, and have more frustrated moments than "cool!" moments. More cool moments is better.
3. It'll be easier to learn Python or Javascript after you get comfortable with HTML/CSS. The Front End and Learn Python tracks are great, and they do attempt to give you some prerequisite learning in web basics, I don't think it's enough. Honestly until you can throw together a simple web page without thinking much about it, you're just adding too much complexity. You can only learn one thing at a time. If you're struggling to get the body of the page to have the right margins, you're not going to be able to focus on learning how to make your modal pop-up work right.

Another: Watching the videos and doing the code challenges is not enough. Learn something, and then practice it until you really have the hang of it. For some concepts the videos and code challenges might be enough, but most of the time, you should jump into a text editor / workspace / codepen / jsbin and try to recreate what you saw in the video. Then try to do something slightly different using the same concept. Once you're feeling like you've got it, move on. You might have to watch videos more than once!

The more advanced you get, the more you can conceptualize what you're watching and apply it to different things. As an example, I just went through the Learn Django track. In it, Kenneth builds a learning site (kinda like a simplified Treehouse... but without any content). I followed along with the whole course, and built a completely different app using all the concepts in the course. I've gone back and watch MANY of the videos over again as I've run into problems, some of them more than twice.

All this to say, it gets easier, but it also kind of doesn't get easier. You learn skills like how to learn more efficiently, but you still have to put the work in, since you're learning harder and harder stuff as you progress. Give yourself time, though. Take it slow. Take breaks! Think of fun things you'd like to do with coding (keep it simple for now!), and use that as your goal for learning.

I've said it before, but if you can embrace the frustrations that are inherent in programming (at all levels!) because you love the rush of getting something working, you'll do well. If you're feeling too frustrated, that's probably a sign that you need to take a step back and shore up the foundations.

You'll get there - give yourself time!

Cheers

-Greg

Jon Myzzle Joshua Senneff When i started at Treehouse, I already had like basic knowledge of .NET, PHP/Laravel, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, c# , SASS and even Elixir(dont ask why). I was so friggin' confused and frustrated as hell. Literally almost made my head explode. So yeah i dabbled with stacks a bit. And then i found this post on Treehouse Blog(Yes it exists!) it was about how , when and why should we frustrated when learning to code?. It also said if you're not frustrated, you're not learning and you've no desire to learn. i mean deep, right?

I joined Treehouse as soon as i read that post. I read this post on LinkedIn about Ruby vs Python. That post was something all i need. I went for both languages. As soon as i started learning Python and Ruby on Treehouse, i had several yeah thats totally me and ahh moments. I'd switch between blogs, youtube videos, docs, github projects , treehouse , linkedIn and Stack overflow a lot. I didnt absorb everything in, i just try to understand the syntax and logic behind it. It all comes down to basics.

I literally finished Ruby and Ruby-on-Rails in a week. And on the sides i'd practice algorithms on codewars, which actually helped me a lot. Thats when i found the power of Python and Ruby. And in couple of weeks i'd started making projects for clients. Now im still learning and still frustrated and still confused but now the difference is i dont let it get to me , instead i use that frustration to deep dive into everything. The hell, there was a time i literally dived into kernel scripting of Ruby's built-in methods and bash scripting with native C. So bottom line is frustration is directly proportional to your curiosity. Its as simple as that. So dont give up coz the sweet result that you dreamed of is waiting for you at the end.

~ Ari