FreeCodeCamp

FreeCodeCamp

Pros:

Free Code Camp courses tend to be very accessible (easy to get started and provide a quick remedy to apprehension a mentee might have about something being “too hard”). You can work through the material in-browser without any local setup. Pursued completely, their courses to provide a pretty thorough coverage of the material.

The material is well indexed, and it’s easy to drill straight into their coverage of a single topic. This can be useful if you’re just looking for “another explanation”

Cons:

The integrated editor that allows you to get started quickly is good and bad. It is not how you’ll actually work on projects and this is a lot of material to have covered without configuring and setting up some sort of development environment.

While early sessions are easy to work through, and can give you that “I can do this” experience that everyone needs getting started, you should manage expectations. Material is covered briefly, with a short (in-browser) test that you understood the thing you just read. You should expect that there will be something of a “rude realization” that you don’t really recall all of the material covered. This is normal for the way the material is covered. It provides a basic exposure, but you will have to go back and look up things that were covered.

  • Responsive Web Design
  • JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures

    The JavaScript curriculum is notably lacking in any sort of DOM interaction. This can result in quite a lengthy period of learning JavaScript, without connecting it back to how it’s going to tie back into what you’ve learned about HTML and CSS and can improve your web pages.