What kind of content should Edu host?

[jamesaorson]

Background

Edu is a hub for free educational content about Computer Science and Software development, generally. So far...we have no content. So what content should be hosted?

Discussion Purpose

This post should be a long-lived space to discuss existing and new content for Edu, for both the free and (eventual) paid offerings of the platform.

[brandonapol]

I would like to see an in-depth dive of advanced JavaScript and advanced Python in particular, as well as an accessible language survey course.

Are we interested in hosting a course that teaches students with zero technical background at all? Ostensibly we could have starter courses and go all the way to master's degree level coursework all within Edu

[brandonapol]

I also think a code-centric approach to digital logic and design (Boolean Algebra) would be helpful; I also would love to see a course on Type Theory and Set Theory for programmers, since modern programming languages are built off these ideas.

[jamesaorson]

For digital logic, there is this Lua library I wrote long ago that lets you simulate circuits, even with delays, and then inspect them as the simulation ticks along: https://gitlab.com/JamesOrson/LuaLogic

We should rewrite this in a more instructive and usable manner, with a more appropriate language

[brandonapol]

Sounds like another side quest for me

[ToddGallegos]

After Coding Temple, here are the areas I'd like to level-up (based on typical position requirements I've seen during my job search and based on asking ChatGPT what technologies are often paired with PostgreSQL, Flask, and React):

MongoDB and Express to round out the MERN stack.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Typescript seems to be more and more in demand for JS devs

ChatGPT suggested GraphQL, Docker, and Redux as well (for someone who knows PostgreSQL, Flask, and React to round out their stack)

[jamesaorson]

• AWS is often a mystery to most, and I have found in my career that working with IaC (Infrastructure as Code) tools like Cloudformation and (more helpfully) Terraform have been more effective at teaching me how to use AWS than clicking around in the web UI trying to figure out how things connect together. This also allows you to programmatically reproduce your environments and audit your infrastructure without wondering "did I click the right things?" You can instead just "read the code" and know what is deployed with confidence.
• TypeScript has definitely gained traction as it reduces bugs found after you ship your code to your customers
• GraphQL is back and forth between being actually popular or not, but you are bound to at least have to query a GraphQL api at some given point
• Docker is a given, but I would say more specifically, understanding what containers are, what is pivot_root(), and how OCI fits into the suite of tools out there is more important, especially given that k8s officially removed Docker from its runtime
• Redux is better approached from understanding functional state management patterns as a whole, and something like Pinia would probably work better as a teaching tool here

[brandonapol]

I'm gonna throw some stuff for Digital Ocean together I think in the next few weeks d get students to put their flask projects into Docker containers on DO, then look around at some of what DO does from that point

[GabWithoutE]

I think it would be cool to have guided but not copy paste projects with real software architecture/design problems that people can follow along and learn fun stuff.

https://github.com/ssloy/tinyrenderer/wiki
^something like this was really cool

[brandonapol]

I like this. I am eager to look into stuff like https://profy.dev/ as well - making a series of 'simulators' for junior devs to learn jobsite skill sets within a low-pressure environment.

[brandonapol]

I'd like to make a course explaining nextJS and server side components as well since I truly believe they're the future of React