CodeNewbie Community 🌱

How can we make CodeNewbie better?

CodeNewbie Staff on January 21, 2021

We have been officially live for one week! Thank you to everyone who has joined us, and shared your awesome advice and stories. As we grow the comm...
Collapse
 
vonheikemen profile image
Heiker • Edited

Needs some well defined sections. Not just tags, I don't think they are enough in here. Like a sections that's all about tutorials, another to ask for help, learn "x" from scratch, getting career advice, motivation... stuff like that. And there needs to be an obvious way to get to these sections.

If I'm a newbie that wants to ask for help, I want the site to literally guide me where I can do that (and how to do it right). Otherwise the only thing I can do is make a post and just hope that someone reads that.

Collapse
 
mccurcio profile image
Matt C • Edited
  • One suggestion for the Tutorial sections could be that the tutorials (for example) could be rated by most stars or most comments or likes.
  • Another idea is that tutorials could be given prizes for being the best written, or most complete or best ...
  • Dev.to has some good content but One cannot find the most highly rated tutorial on x...
Collapse
 
iny_ang profile image
Inyang{}

Good point

Collapse
 
joey_the_dev profile image
Joel

Agreed

Collapse
 
brendamichellle profile image
Brenda Michelle

100% agree there should be an easy way on the main feed page where newbies can navigate to specific sections depending on what they are looking for based on the categories you provided

Collapse
 
sheriffderek profile image
sheriffderek • Edited

Keep the goals of the posts - to HELP NEWBIES...

I'm not sure that newbies... want to know about your tricky AWS technique for x and y - that they won't need for 10 more years... and at which time -- hopefully, AWS is gone.

It looks like CodeNewbie has managed to take on all of the same problems of Dev - in a week. Too many posts - and no real way to group them. "Hey, I learned today that HTML is not a programming language" type stuff... and then some really intense tutorials on edge-case React stuff... it's hard for me to find anything to read.

I was hoping that CodeNewbie would kinda splinter off - so, new people could learn (And hopefully from quality stuff) / and then Dev.to - could be the more "intermediate" type area with actual debate and conversation from people in the industry for a long time. (obviously crazy to try and enforce that)

(that's just what I thought... but of course, it's not your job to make it so.)

It says "The most supportive place for newbies.... " - right?

Well, looking at the main feed --- it might be "Friendly" - but it's terrifying. (at least it would seem so, if I was new.) I think a new person will probably get stuck in tutorial purgatory and end up wasting years... : / which doesn't seem very supportive. There's a lot of passionate - yet misguiding tutorials out there / and it would be nice to somehow get a handle on what is 'quality" and really not even quality - but "appropriate" for people starting out.

People could learn a lot more if they had to submit a thesis or something. Supportive - may mean "teaching" - and so, for the new people - that might mean showing the things worth reading... and for the intermediate people - it might be to teach them how to write - with goal-driven process - that could be validated by the new people. If the goal of a post is to teach X - then their target audience should learn X by the end of the article. But that's a whole other business model than eyes and ads.

Those are my honest thoughts.

I put up "My learning journey" - here... and then maybe a "How to handle a large companies CSS at scale...." On dev.to.

It would make sense for other people to do the same - instead of just smashing it full of whatever they can think of. Maybe only allow 1 post per week?

Collapse
 
sheriffderek profile image
sheriffderek

What about a "level of difficulty" type thing?

Because I help students all the time - who have been trying to learn for YEARS.. and have just bounced around to sooo many different tutorials - and well, they really need to know the basics - and have some sort of gauge for when what is the right thing to learn about.

Collapse
 
murkrage profile image
Mike Ekkel

We have a "level of difficulty" range on DEV, but I'm not sure if it actually works for people. It also relies on trusted users to rate the level of difficulty.

Collapse
 
iny_ang profile image
Inyang{}

I really love this comment ❀️.
You just spoke my mind, because I'm a newbie. If you say you're here to support me a newbie and I'm seeing some overwhelmingly terrifying stuffs out here......(hey amma give up 😩).

Collapse
 
murkrage profile image
Mike Ekkel

I think this is a very fair comment and something I quickly noticed as well.

Collapse
 
tonycimaglia profile image
Tony Cimaglia

I want to reiterate what sheriffderek is saying here. There are articles popping up here that are not even remotely in the realm of beginner content. I know you're getting everything off the ground, so there will be growing pains.

I think you're going to have to put something in place that allows people to easily report articles that aren't for beginners. The "Report Abuse" option doesn't really seem to fit this case. Either that or articles need to be reviewed by a moderator before they can go live (seems impossible once things get really rolling).

I also think that there might need to be some kind of rubric / guidelines for writers depending on what type of post they're creating. There are a lot of "beginner" articles that aren't really laying out any pre-requisites, or relying on A LOT of assumptions about the reader's knowledge level. I read a tutorial here that would be good for someone fairly new, but it fails to mention that following along requires:

Familiarity with HTML & CSS.
Basic knowledge of JavaScript and programming.
Basic understanding of the DOM.
Familiarity with ES6 syntax and features.
Node.js and npm installed globally.

Naming the pre-requisites, or providing links to other resources seems essential for newcomers. I would have felt discouraged and overwhelmed reading many of these posts 3 years ago when I began coding.

Collapse
 
brendamichellle profile image
Brenda Michelle

I agree there should be a moderator or something in place that can determine if an article is for codenewbie. Maybe to start of they can have some guidelines for posts. I know it might take some time to get moderators or a system going so some guidelines and a report button might be a good start.

Collapse
 
gracie profile image
Gracie Gregory (she/her)

Hi friends!

Just wanted to let everyone here know that the CodeNewbie and Forem team discussed your feedback and requests here during our meeting today. We will tackle many of these items asap! I'll provide an update soon.

Thank you all so much πŸ’š

Collapse
 
murkrage profile image
Mike Ekkel

That's great to hear πŸ˜„

Collapse
 
iamspruce profile image
spruce

Create Challenges...
Beginner based challenges like..

  1. Mark-up an Accessible toggle button with html
  2. Design a responsive header with css
  3. Create this vs that Discussion e.g ( == vs ===) in JavaScript
Collapse
 
brendamichellle profile image
Brenda Michelle

This is a very good idea! Beginner-friendly challenges would be fun

Collapse
 
jonoyeong profile image
Jonathan Yeong

Reading through the comments, I see some trends:

  • It's hard to find content.
  • The content that you do get is not targeted towards beginners.
  • It's hard to differentiate between Code Newbie and DEV.to content.

I agree with everything that has already been said. Here are some of my other thoughts:

  • Could we utilize the reactions more to sort posts? Posts with more reactions are at the top of your feed more. And you can sort these best posts via dates (week, month, year...). You should also have a way to sort by new posts. The purpose is to bubble up posts that are going to be the most valuable to early in career devs. This point may have already been made in the comments!
  • Can we have weekly threads on what people are learning or struggling with. I think we do this on Twitter already. Having this thread could help build community bonding, and can provide topics for people to write about. The latter point is what I'm excited about the most. We could start building content around what people are struggling with.
  • Better tag curation - right now we have 200 posts listed under #beginners. And a lot of these posts might not actually be for beginners. Maybe we should look into breaking apart this tag into more concrete tags.
  • Tony Cimaglia has already mentioned pre-requisite - but I'd take this a step further and make the pre-requisites link to supporting "official" code newbie documentation that people could contribute to (through comments or PRs). I think it would be super awesome to build a library of CodeNewbie knowledge that is the one stop place to go. I know when I was first learning, I was super overwhelmed with all the different resources out there. And this knowledge bank becomes a key differentiator from DEV.
Collapse
 
jingjing142 profile image
Jing-Jing Hu

I think that all of the above are great suggestions, especially the CodeNewbie knowledge library, provided that it’s well-structured.

Regarding the beginners tag, we could have language-specific tags and sub-tags within those. It would also be nice to eventually be able to tailor your feed based on those tags to help people focus.

The amount of resources out there was also one of my biggest problems when I first started learning. And even now, I would find it very helpful to be able to adjust my feed based on what I’m learning. E.g. following the React tag when I’m learning React, and then switching to Vue when I’m learning Vue. That way there is less of a risk of getting sidetracked, and people can even form study groups based on that.

There could then be weekly threads on what people are learning or struggling with based on those tags. Same with coding questions or challenges for beginners. Because when I’m learning React, I want to read about and discuss React, and too much context-switching would distract me and make me less willing to engage. So having a cleaner, customisable feed would help a lot in that regard.

Collapse
 
jonoyeong profile image
Jonathan Yeong

Ooo I love this suggestion! 100% agree that there's just so many resources out there and it can be overwhelming.

Collapse
 
mccurcio profile image
Matt C

It's hard to differentiate between Code Newbie and DEV.to content.

ABSOLUTELY

Collapse
 
arpan45 profile image
Arpan Adhikari

Make the url short. something like dev.to

Collapse
 
andrewbaisden profile image
Andrew Baisden

Yes I don't think it is easy to find especially from the main codenewbie website. A link to dev.to is shown on the main menu but I don't think there is one for this community yet. I noticed that they recently added a hero section on the main page which links to this website though.

Collapse
 
beginnercoder17 profile image
BeginnerCoder17

I argree

Collapse
 
agustinustheo profile image
Agustinus Theodorus • Edited

I can't seem to tell the difference between the purpose of Dev.to and Codenewbie. It seems to me that Codenewbie is just a second version of Dev, content-wise it's all similar no separating themes. Also, the community in Dev.to is already great enough, why should we move to Codenewbie?

Collapse
 
sheriffderek profile image
sheriffderek

Let me ask you this: Are you a "newbie" - or someone who writes content specifically for people who are just starting out on their code journey?

Collapse
 
agustinustheo profile image
Agustinus Theodorus

In the circumstance that you gave, I would fall closer to the second category.

Thread Thread
 
sheriffderek profile image
sheriffderek

I just pose that - generally. If people aren't in one of those two categories - then maybe this forum isn't the right forum for those people.

Thread Thread
 
agustinustheo profile image
Agustinus Theodorus • Edited

IMHO, if that's the case then I worry the content here may not be as extensive as the ones on Dev.to, thus the community might end up writing the same articles over and over.

Is it a good thing? Probably. I can't say but I feel that a community at least has to grow at some point.

I also see the environment in Dev already conclusive enough for newbies to have a discussion. People in these two forums are very welcoming overall (I am saying this according to my experience).

What I do agree about your point however is to be able to share your learning journies here. The content on this site can revolve more around learning goals to help newbies know what to learn.

Collapse
 
10bitlife profile image
life in 10 bit

As a codenewbie newbie, most of the content I have seen so far isn't relevant to me, the pieces about people's journey are interesting and can provide some ideas of where to look at starting out.
I am trying to get used to html right now, it's simple when you have been using it for awhile (potentially years), but I haven't found much if anything, that would be useful in the way of pointers or information.

I've tried looking on dev.to to see if that would be a helpful place and it is filled with even more confusing things for a beginner than here.

The name Codenewbie, implies it'll be helpful to new coders, right now it isn't imo.

(small disclaimer; I do not always get my point across in the best way, hoping I have this time)

Collapse
 
margo_hdb profile image
Margo McCabe

Hi there! Just joined :)

Does CodeNewbie allow (or discourage / encourage) cross posting from Dev.to or other platforms? Or original material only?

Collapse
 
margo_hdb profile image
Margo McCabe • Edited

@codenewbiestaff any insight here? Thanks :)

Collapse
 
andrewbaisden profile image
Andrew Baisden

I can't speak for everyone but I am currently cross posting. It should be okay so long as the content is beginner friendly. So that is something to take into account with future posts. I agree with the other comments on this subject.

Collapse
 
elpepebenitez profile image
Pepe Benitez • Edited

Hi everyone! I agree after a week and so reading both dev and codenewbie that they feel too similar at the moment. If the target is people just starting out, there are many good ideas in the comments below, such as different sections for different topics, a place to ask for help, and clear guidelines for writers to follow and not fall into assuming that everyone knows basic topics.

My contribution would be to propose a place to easily and quickly find the best (or at least best reviewed or most voted) articles on specific topics. This would be really important in my perspective, so the same articles are not written over and over again. Maybe also a way for people to organize the articles that they like.

There could even be a way to collaborate, so if you like an article but you feel that it is missing something, you could add it or propose it to the author, and get some kind of recognition for that (this is what a lot of us do anyway when we participate in open source projects, and it might be a good way for more people to start writing).

Really like the idea of what codenewbie is trying to achieve! Dev is amazing, but as someone starting out it definitely feels super overwhelming some of the time; not necessarily because the topics themselves might be too much to understand, but just because it is difficult to filter what could be useful and understandable vs a bunch of words that I have no idea what they mean so I don't even know if I want to invest the time to know about it.

I know that it is up to us to rise up to the challenge and learn πŸ’ͺ , but there could be ways to improve the experience πŸ™Œ Hope this is useful in any way!

Collapse
 
gauravrandheer profile image
Gaurav

I think a beginner's mind is full of doubt about all things such as the concept they are learning or their concepts are clear or not, which project should they work on , which career should they pursue. Am I on the right track? or I am not getting this thing should I leave it to do the other things, where can a person experience in a paricular field what is freelancing how can a beginner start do this, what is a startup, how to make products and many more each and every ones have their own problem. So I think you can't over these things

Collapse
 
lesnsex profile image
lesNsex

add dark mode please my eyes hurt at night when I'm on the app afterwards I can't sleep

Collapse
 
michaeltharrington profile image
Michael Tharrington

Heyo! You can actually change themes via community.codenewbie.org/settings/.... That said, there appears to potentially be an issue with dark mode right now. πŸ€”

Collapse
 
yemisitaiwo06 profile image
YemisiTaiwo06

Thanks to all who have commented so far😩, y'all communicated my challenges as a newbie on the platform.
In addition to what has been suggested earlier, let's have:
β€’ Newbie create challenges
β€’ Sample projects suggestions to build as we learn from one language to the other.

Collapse
 
rizwan486 profile image
Rizwan Hasan • Edited

😊

Collapse
 
joey_the_dev profile image
Joel • Edited

I agree somewhat with some of the responses here in saying that this site looks so much similar to dev.to, not only in theme but also in content. If this site is to cater to beginners then some of the content here is not appropriate. I'm not sure how it can be moderated right now, but I'll make suggestions as they come to me.