I recently watched the amazing 32-hour blockchain video course by the one and only @patrickalphac.lens for freeCodeCamp.
Some reflections, a 🧵👇🏽
- the general
- the specific
- the personal
- the takeaway
- Observations
The course lives up to its stellar reputation and word-of-mouth kudos.
"This is going to be probably the most thorough course you will ever go through in this space."
💯TRUE
Patrick is a gifted teacher--high energy, encouraging, detailed and clear.
Material is top notch:
- high production value
- code examples work perfectly
- written commentary makes sense
- textbook quality of a 2nd semester~2nd yr course at a good CS university
I sped through the videos at 1.25x + CC with code on a second screen, slowing down to re-watch portions and do certain exercises.
I had pages of notes + bookmarks for later use in my own projects.
All in ~12 hours of intense study #YMMV
- Example
I was also Easter Egg hunting, as I had heard NFTs were available for those who did challenges.
around @1:04:52:29, Patrick mentioned the first person to make a PR wins an NFT.
I thought this was late enough in the course to be challenging / worthwhile.
Cloned the repo, Ctrl-Shift-F to find this [component] is imported in only 2 files, and one of the files doesn't even use the import (any more)! looks easy...
...READ THE COMMENTS! (in Github PRs)
The accepted solution is amazing, and totally different from what I expected. It led to more deep diving (away from the course) and I found yet another approach that I will use in the future.
A bunch of the later solutions were more along the lines of my initial approach.
Attempting a challenge can lead to much deeper learning, with much more future value than a bragging-rights 1/1 NFT.
(Links)
why use next/image https://mediajams.dev/post/Using-Cloud-Providers-with-nextimage
why use akamai https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65487914/error-image-optimization-using-next-js-default-loader-is-not-compatible-with-n
deeper discussion https://github.com/vercel/next.js/discussions/19065
- Me Me Me
Am I the only one who ...
... thinks Patrick and JT O'Sullivan (The QB School) are brothers?
many long, engrossing videos 😂
I took a community college class in high school. Taught + attended community college classes as an undergrad.
I took 1 beginner + 1 intermediate CS undergrad class, both taught by famous professors at a university which funnels to FAANG employment.
For the price of FREE, you can get the same information + teaching quality as intro Ivy League classes at $$$$$.
What you don't get is advising, a credential, or exposure to other students with standards of excellence...which you can seek (and find) online.
I appreciate that Patrick chose to teach Lesson 15 this way:
- NFT Marketplace in NextJS, with centralized back-end
- keep the frontend, swap to a decentralized back-end
What ambition and execution!
"If you finish this lesson, you are a full-stack MONSTER!"
- Testimonial
I found the video to be well worth the time investment. The material is solid, well explained, and an enjoyable watch.
As many have said before, it seems to be the perfect complement to Alchemy's Road To Web3.
After 32 hours of video watching, you will have been spoon-fed more high-nutrition knowledge.
You should know how/where to start from a bank of high-quality tutorial project code, with which you are intimately familiar.
Whereas after 10 weeks of RTW3, you will have developed more learning muscles, built a network of learners in similar stages as you, and have multiple projects where what you produced is NOT what the instructor gave you.
I conclude with some amazing parting thoughts from Patrick:
"The biggest thing that you can do for yourself right now is go take what you've learnt, and apply it somewhere.
At some point, you have to make that leap, and you have to dive in. And that's where the majority of the growth is going to be."
[image]
this thread was originally posted to Twitter link
