A short while ago I wrote a pretty scathing post about Code School following some difficulties I'd had with their Angular.js tutorial. Strange issues with a very retentive stance on how variables should be named even though it was not necessary to follow this convention to get the code working. I also reached a point very early on in the course where I could not progress.
Today I found myself learning to use Git & Github. My first tutorial came from http://try.github.io and I thought that was a really good starting point. It somehow linked me through to the whole open badges thing and then afterwards I noticed the big orange 'Continue Learning' button which takes you to gitreal.codeschool.com. I have to say that this offering from Code School was a much more pleasant learning experience than the free Angular course. The video training was good (maybe a little fast paced if I hadn't already done the previous tutorial) and the challenge seemed intuitive, offered help at just the right places and more importantly didn't argue about the unimportant parts (e.g. user.name) having a certain value or using specific case... AwE$0m3
I found the first chapter (which is all you get without paying) to be a very positive experience and through these two tutorials I now have a much better understanding of Git. I will no longer automatically rule out Code School in future. One thing I do think is missing from their system is some sort of ability to make notes. There didn't seem to be a quick recap button for when you miss a point being made (Pluralsight by comparison has a button to make the video go back 8 seconds). Also when you do the exercises you are trying to remember what you've just seen but you need to press pause to make notes. A simple "Note-this" button which takes a .jpg of the current video frame would be ideal and of great benefit when going through the challenge at the end.
Anyway well done Code School.
