Chingu AMA with Quincy Larson
On Thursday, June 9, 2017, the Chingu Cohorts had the pleasure of hosting an “Ask Me Anything” session with Quincy Larson, creator of freeCodeCamp. Below is the transcript of the session, but please be aware that it’s been edited a bit for readability - Quincy’s answers have been placed under their respective questions.
How it began:
periman
/portalopen
SlackPortal
This is your new portal:
URL: https://slackteamportal.herokuapp.com/5939dded60c1c70011595b3b
State: Live (To change state, use the /portalmute command)
Quincy Larson
Hi everyone
This is Quincy
This seems to be working
(note: /portal is a Slack integration created to allow outsiders to temporarily join a Slack channel)
Joey_Codes
Hey Quincy
sparta
Hello
periman
Welcome !
chance
Hey Quincy!!
veredrec
Hi Quincy!
matthew-burfield
Hi Quincy!
alecia
Hi Quincy 
:skin-tone-5:
geist
Hi!
ramirop
Welcome sir!
Quincy Larson
Hi everyone!
belcurv
Hi Quincy - huge thanks for participating in our AMA.
periman
We trulyreciate you taking the time to do this !
Quincy Larson
@belcurv @periman thanks for having me
@periman thanks for building this slack portal tool
periman
And thank you for using it ! I couldn’t have imagined a better use for it 
The Questions and Answers
Question 1
peterjmartinson
Here’s a quick intro!
Quincy Larson is the founder of freeCodeCamp, an open source community of over a million people who learn to code together and build projects for nonprofits.
He is, himself, a programmer, but his background is in education. He has worked as a teacher, tutor, and school director in both the United States and China. During that time, he taught himself how to code, and used that knowledge to automate school workflows, so that teachers and administrators could have more time with their students. Since 2014, he has become a leading voice within the renaissance of code, and has aided thousands of people worldwide to achieve developer’s bliss.For the next hour, you can ask him anything! Please remember to be courteous to our guest, and mindful of the other participants.
So, I’ll put up the first question to get things rolling: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned since starting freeCodeCamp?
Quincy Larson
The most important lesson I’ve learned is that anyone can learn to code and get a coding job. I’ve seen all kinds of unlikely success stories that have confirmed this. To quote Ford: Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.
Question 2
sparta
Are there any plans to Branch out from just non profit projects at the end of FCC tracks to For Profit companies? For example, doing pro bono projects for a company for the experience
Quincy Larson
There are literally 1 million nonprofits just here in the US. There’s no shortage of work to be done to help these nonprofits fulfill their missions. For profit companies can use our open source tools as well, of course, but we’ll continue to focus on helping nonprofits for the foreseeable future.
Question 3
belcurv
A previous AMA guest was asked something similar to @peterjmartinson’s 1st question. Paraphrasing a part of his response: “learning to let go of a piece of code you have been working on for a long time.” Have you faced that with FCC? Like, the FCC you launched has taken on a direction of its own? If yes, how have you dealt with relaxing control?
Quincy Larson
freeCodeCamp has always been chaotic with as little control as possible. One of the reasons our community has gotten traction is, aside from the code of conduct, we do almost nothing to try and control the conversation. We embrace the chaos in a way most organizations - who have shareholders or boards of stakeholders - cannot. So we haven’t relaxed control at all, really. There was never any control to begin with, beyond very basic common sense protections against malicious / buggy code, or toxic individuals.
belcurv
Thanks @quincy
Question 4
reub
Hi Quincy! Why do you think that the Chingu program has been so popular, and is there anything that’s happening here that you think you’d want to try implementing into FCC?
Quincy Larson
I think Chingu has been popular because so many people clearly want a cohorted structure. This makes total sense because it’s how most traditional education programs function. Coursera and EdX, for example, both started out with the cohorted model before moving to completely self paced. There are clear advantages to both. Cohorted provides more motivation, and a more engaged peer group. Self-paced provides more flexability and accessibility to busy people (people with kids, school, jobs, etc.). The reason Chingu has taken off - aside form it being something so many people clearly want - is because it’s very well run. I’ve heard great things about some of the key people involved, and they seem to be very in tune with what the community wants.
Question 5
ermarie
What are the most common pitfalls that you find for people who fail to finish FCC or get a job as a coder?
Quincy Larson
I think the most common pitfall is people getting discouraged when a company rejects their application or interview. The reality is companies are extremely risk averse and are much more afraid of hiring the wrong person than not hiring the right person. Thus, even really talented developers like Sean Smith (https://medium.freecodecamp.com/how-i-learned-to-code-and-earned-a-job-in-silicon-valley-changing-my-life-along-the-way-a3af854855fa) still have to apply to hundreds of jobs before getting a good offer.
chance
Such a great article!
Question 6
peterjmartinson
What does FCC look like in the year 2027?
Quincy Larson
Wikipedia is about 16 years old, and in 2027, we’ll be about 13 years old, so we’d like to be about 13/16 = 80% as far along as Wikipedia is in completing its mission. Our goal of course is to help as many people learn to code and get developer jobs as possible. Right now there are about 20 million developers on earth and I think we’ll have at least 10 million more developer jobs in the next 10 years, so we have plenty of room to grow and help more people.
icartusacrimea
That is an inspiring answer.
Quincy Larson
But in short, right now we’re helping thousands of people get their first developer job each year and in 10 years, I hope we’ll be helping 100,000’s of people get their first developer job each year.
peterjmartinson
@Quincy - thank you, Sir!
chance
Love it!
peterjmartinson
oh, wait, followup! Does that mean you think the stack taught in FCC will remain the same? i.e. JavaScript, etc.?
Quincy Larson
We’ll keep the core certificates full stack JavaScript (I think everyone should learn JavaScript first: https://medium.freecodecamp.com/what-programming-language-should-i-learn-first-ʇdıɹɔsɐʌɐɾ-ɹǝʍsuɐ-19a33b0a467d) but we’re adding lots of supplementary challenges and tool guides as well. Once you learn JS thoroughly you can go learn other tools.
Question 7
veredrec
Quincy, what is the most important thing that makes a successful coder?
Quincy Larson
The most important trait in a successful coder is persistence. Hands down.
veredrec
Thanks Quincy!
Question 8
matthew-burfield
@Quincy - Is FCC, as it stands now, how you envisioned it to be when you first started the project? Were there any ways in particular you were able to get quick feedback to know if you were on the right track when first starting?
Quincy Larson
I envisioned fCC as a supportive community with lots of resources for people who were learning to code, and in that sense, I think my prediction was pretty accurate. There are lots of small things I was wrong about initially, like the importance of Facebook groups in getting people to meet in-person, but in general I’ve been very lucky with my assumptions. I validated (and continue to validate) my assumptions every day by looking at data and listening to feedback and ideas from campers. I am doing that right now here with the Chingu community 
Question 9
ramirop
Hi Quincy! First of all, thanks, FCC was what really made me interested in web development and pursue the dream of a career on this field. If I get a job I will owe you big time. Now to the question: If a genie come out of a lamp and he tell you you can add a feature or a change to FCC instantaneously, what would you ask for?
Quincy Larson
I would instantly add the ability to run different languages client-side. For example, Python, Kotlin. Right now we’re using REPL.it for this for our upcoming challenges, and it’s a great tool. VC-backed companies like REPL.it and Codecademy can afford the servers to do this, but it would get expensive to do this for the ~500 people who are using fCC at any given moment.
belcurv
Great questions everyone… 
Question 10
jdmedlock
@quincy Does FCC employ a particular methodology to determine which technologies or libraries need to be added to the instructional program. Conversely, have you ever dropped or de-emphasized a technology or library? How did you evaluate these decisions?
Quincy Larson
Yes - we constantly talk with hiring managers and use a lot of data from job markets. For example, I’m confident Kotlin will be one of the next big things (though JavaScript is still the biggest thing and probably will be for at least a few more years). As for dropping technologies, we saw the writing on the wall with Angular. I still think it has promise, but React is much more promising at this point.
Question 11
reub
Hey Quincy—how do you like the celebrity status you’re developing (hah)? Do you get free lattes at Starbucks yet?
Quincy Larson
If this is a serious question, I get a few more emails than I used to, but that’s about it. I’m happy being just some random face in a crowd in real life, and I hope things stay that way.
reub
Nice! I’m surprised that you haven’t noticed much difference, beyond the emails.
Question 12
periman
Quincy - What was your best learning experience so far ? When and how did it happen ?
Quincy Larson
It’s hard to top New Year’s Eve 2014 when I was pair programming with Terakilobyte. I’d worked as a developer and gone to a lot of hackathons, but I’d never met anyone quite as high-energy as him. He was in Seoul and I was in SF, and we pair programmed right through the New Year and I looked up and it was like 3 a.m. and we’d shipped some serious code!
periman
Wow that sounds like an amazing experience ! thanks for the answer.
Question 13
the-thief
Hi Quincy. I’m thinking operating servers and bandwidth for FCC must be quite expensive. How is all of that funded?
Quincy Larson
I self-funded freeCodeCamp for the first 2.5 years (I wrote about this here: https://www.quora.com/How-does-Quincy-Larson-make-money/answer/Quincy-Larson). We started accepting donations a few months ago, and that has gone a long way toward covering our costs. If you have $3 or $10 you can donate each month, our nonprofit will definitely put it to good use. freeCodeCamp will always be 100% free, but the more resources we have, the faster we can improve our platform, content, and support study groups, other nonprofits, and other ambitious initiatives within our community
Question 14
matthew-burfield
@Quincy - The Chingu community and all the localised facebook meetups around the world have all spawned from within the FCC community. Do you know of any other communities that have also spawned from FCC?
Quincy Larson
Yes - freecodecamp.cn is a China-based version of freecodecamp that isn’t affiliated with us but I talk with their organizers all the time. They have maybe 50,000 campers over in China. China is very restrictive to outside internet organizations (hence Google and Uber pulling out completely) and our small nonprofit doesn’t have the resources to participate in the China due to the costs of compliance and dedicated servers. So freecodecamp.cn is providing a valuable service helping the Chinese people learn to code for free.
matthew-burfield
Wow, that’s cool!
Question 15
joey_codes
@quincy Thanks for being here today! I met you over at the Codeland Conference in New York and it was an amazing event. Has there been any thought to FCC doing some events to bring everyone together and perhaps meet some industry people?
Quincy Larson
We have limited resources. Doing things in-person is quite challenging and resource intensive. Saron (who runs CodeNewbie and orchestrated Codeland) is exceptionally good at what she does. Few people could pull off what she’s done with Codeland, and I’m certainly not one of them. I’m going to stick with what I’m good at, which is writing and coding and helping find amazing campers and give them expanded responsibilities within our community. If we were to have Wikipedia-like donations ($100m/y) then yes - we could probably hire a team to handle this for us. But it’s not a priority for us right now. We need to help 1 million plus campers learn to code and get a coding job, and I think there are lots of recruiters and companies specialized in job placement who can help campers get jobs. We want to prepare them to code well, then apply successfully and interview successfully. We are less able to help individual campers network with employers.
Question 16
alecia
@Quincy How do you manage your time? I read this article https://noteworthy.medium.com/quincy-larson-958f4903f9b7. Has your routine changed now that you no longer live in SF or is the same? (edited)
Quincy Larson
Nothing has really changed moving back to SF, except now I’m in a house instead of an 800 square foot apartment, so I can be a bit louder at night without waking the baby. I still work asynchronously for the most part and have a simple routine that doesn’t ever change - even on weekends (https://medium.freecodecamp.com/live-asynchronously-c8e7172fe7ea)
alecia
Thank you!
Question 17
belcurv
@Quincy - do you see any market demand for vanilla JS (or vanilla + a library or two)? Or does the employer/recruiter data you see suggest framework(s) are a requirement?
Quincy Larson
Our beta curriculum emphasizes fundamentals much more strongly, and we will continue to move in that direction. Specific tools are less important than coding ability and the ability to build stuff that works and is secure and reliable. All our new projects are implementation agnostic - you can use whatever tools you want to build them.
belcurv
@Quincy > “lacking a clear core and jumping around too much” pretty much describes me too. And led me to Angular (I didn’t see the writing on the wall). Thank you for your answers - I’m happy to hear the beta curriculum incorporates more fundamentals.
Question 18
geist
@quincy what resources, if any, do you recommend to supplement FCC and perhaps round out a person’s knowledge base? I’ve used p1xt’s guide and some udemy stuff, but am curious on your thoughts here.
Quincy Larson
I recommend using every resource at your disposal. Whatever seems helpful, use it. But I also recommend beginners stick with a solid core curriculum, then branch out from there. I made lots of mistakes when I was first learning to code, and most of them had to do with lacking a clear core and jumping around too much (https://medium.freecodecamp.com/a-cautionary-tale-of-learning-to-code-my-own-eddb24d9d5a7)
Question 19
chance
@Quincy - What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
Quincy Larson
That virtually every aspect of work will be automated in the coming decades, and the only job that is automation resistant is the task of automating things itself: coding. (https://www.quora.com/Why-do-we-still-code/answer/Quincy-Larson)
chance
Thanks Quincy!
Question 20
matthew-burfield
@Quincy - How important is it to you that FCC was open source and what was the main reason for that? Do you receive many pull requests from campers?
Quincy Larson
Open source is at the core of our community. Everything we do - on GitHub, on the forum, in the chat rooms, on Facebook - it’s all open and public record. I believe strongly in privacy, but I believe people should make as much public as they can, and we have an opportunity to lead in doing that. I also believe (I guess pretty much everyone does at this point) that open source produces much better, more secure software. And that open source evolves much faster than closed source. There are plenty of situations where you’d want code to be closed source but for freeCodeCamp - an education nonprofit - I can’t think of any reason we’d keep anything closed source.
Question 21
the-thief
Have you ever thought about moving on to work on anothet project? Also, is FCC able to continue if you are no longer involved?
Quincy Larson
If I have it my way I’ll work on freeCodeCamp for the rest of my working life. (Quincy Larson's answer to What is Quincy Larson's next big project? - Quora) Our entire core team are extremely capable and could certainly carry on without me. This said - and this may sound immodest - I am putting in 100 hours a week and aside from my family, freeCodeCamp literally is my life. So I like to think I’m a net positive for the organization and helping propel us forward faster toward Wikipedia-like ubiquity and utility.
Question 22
reub
@Quincy—apart from supporting FCC with donations, are you open to other ways that campers can assist with funding? Eg. building tech, spreading the word, volunteering for the non-profit, etc?
Quincy Larson
Take this quiz real quick and it will give you an idea of how you can contribute to our open source community given your skills, interests, and time availability: Free Code Camp Volunteer Quiz
reub
Thanks Quincy
Question 23
the-thief
@quincy has anyone offered to buy FCC?
Quincy Larson
We’re a nonprofit and you can’t buy a nonprofit or own it. freeCodeCamp is owned by the public. There’s no equity.
Question 24
waltera
@quincy What is the one thing you would tell someone that has been struggling with coding and cannot see the light at the end of tunnel?
Quincy Larson
Learning to code is hard. But anyone can learn if they are sufficiently persistent. Never, never, never, never, never give up.
Question 25
colegottdank
@quincy What are a few good tips to know as a beginner freelancer?
Quincy Larson
Check out https://devchat.tv/freelancers - it’s by far the best resource on this.
Question 26
jdmedlock
@Quincy Do you have any plans for adding soft skills to the FCC program. For example, Agile methodologies, conflict resolution, estimating complexity, risk management, etc?
Quincy Larson
Yes - we have so much content in the pipes. We operate without deadlines though (we’re volunteer-driven) so the question is never if - it’s when. Soft skills are a priority. We’re recording lots of YouTube videos and writing Medium articles on these, and creating cohesive guides on so many things. If you’re interested in helping with any of this, shoot me an email.
Conclusion
peterjmartinson
@channel let’s call that a wrap. Thank you Quincy for taking part in this tonight, and for everything you’ve done for all of us!
the-thief
@Quincy Thanks for FCC. Hope you continue to run it for a very long time.
joey_codes
Thanks Quincy!
Quincy Larson
@the-theif thanks! Ireciate your kind words. I’ll do my best
chance
Thank you for all you do Quincy!
jessec
thanks quincy! Your the best man!
alecia
Thanks @Quincy! I stumbled upon fCC on Twitter and learning to code opened up a new world for me.
Quincy Larson
@alecia - awesome! I’m thrilled you found freeCodeCamp and Chingu!
belcurv
@Quincy - sincerely THANK YOU.
waltera
Yes thanks Quincy you have changed my life, helped med find a new purpose!
periman
Yes! Sincerely thank you for your time and your valuable input!
diadora11
Thank you
mtanzillo
Thank you!
matthew-burfield
Thanks @Quincy! Reallyreciate your time
alecia
Thanks @Quincy, @chance @belcurv @icartusacrimea @periman @peterjmartinson and everyone else. That has been fantastic AMA! :celebrate: (edited)
jdmedlock
Thanks Quincy and to the team who arranged and coordinated this session. Good work!
belcurv
@alecia & @waltera - I’ll 3rd that … FCC changed my life too
Quincy Larson
Thanks everyone! I’m going to go give my baby a bath.
I’m always available via email if I can be of help
chance
BIG THANKS to Quincy for sharing his time and thoughts. Another thanks to @peterjmartinson who orchestrated this wonderful adventure. And of course, @periman and @icartusacrimea who built the wheels that allowed this to take place! (edited)
peterjmartinson
Yay for the bath!
alecia
@belcurv 
:skin-tone-5:
ermarie
Thank you and enjoy your time with your baby!
jmaunders
Thanks Quincy!
chance
Thanks for everyone who came and for all the great questions. See you at the next AMA :bananadance:
