Tell us your ideas for the upcoming project-based Algorithms section

[austinmoore1492]

I like the project based approach. I think some people struggle with the why and not the how. Especially when it comes to algorithms. If you are building a project, even a small one, you can look at the project and think about how it should work and figure out why an algorithm would be necessary.

So if you are building something like a simple search form, it’s one thing to learn how to do it but when you go to implement it in a project its easier to see why you need it.

There is a coffee project on GitHub and one of the challenges was to implement something to search through different coffees and for me I understood it better because I had to implement it into a project.

gocodeup/coffee-project

[vivek-agrawal27]

@camperextraordinaire

Let me clarify something I said. The old challenges which are non-algorithmic in nature will not be available once the new curriculum is fully introduced. However, the Basic, Intermediate algorithm challenges along with a few challenges in the JavaScript Data Structures section will still be available in the Coding Interview Section.

I emphasized fully above because the new project based challenges will be slowly incorporated and the older independent challenges will be phased out gradually.

That’s what I was thinking . Thanks for the clarification @camperextraordinaire :).

[vivek-agrawal27]

@stressstressstress

Would it be possible to move the old challenges into the Guide section or something so they can serve as a reference or extra tutorial? There are many times that I remember something in a challenge that I did that would help with a project. And it’s useful to find the challenge, read the text, try out the code, read the hints and code solutions, and even see if the neighboring challenges are related. (I know other more complete references exist out in the web, but it’s nice to be able to go back to the information we’ve already learned here even if it’s just as a springboard to know what to google next.) It seems like a waste to get rid of all that information entirely, even if the new project-based curriculum will be much better for learners.

Great point there @stressstressstress. I can’t tell you if we will move the challenges to the guide or not but I think we need to keep the point you are making in mind. I know when we build projects ourselves we need to revisit a lot of concepts and I feel it’s pretty important for a curriculum to make that revision experience as smooth as possible.

@scissorsneedfoodtoo how should we solve the above-mentioned issue? what I can think of right now is that we should name the challenges of the project-based curriculum like the current challenge-based one.

[vivek-agrawal27]

@austinmoore1492

So if you are building something like a simple search form, it’s one thing to learn how to do it but when you go to implement it in a project its easier to see why you need it.

That’s what you will experience with our project-based curriculum :). You will learn the hows and whys ;).

[jasonmfetzer]

I read a blip this year about “Where in The World is Carmen San Diego?” with the Google Maps API, and I think there is a game on Google Earth that promoted the Netflix reboot. Probably not the ‘Traveling Salesman’ you wanted, but the 80’s ruled!

[jasonmfetzer]

This curriculum with algorithms will soon be more valuable than a college education (if it is not already), and it is completely free.

[scissorsneedfoodtoo]

That’s a very good question. I can’t say for sure what will happen with the current challenges, though many, if not all, are available as forum posts with different solutions.

[vivek-agrawal27]

This is what we have built for our Intermediate Algorithms section: https://perezvon.github.io/fcc-dice-game/. Yahtzee dice game.

Checkout the code on GitHub: https://github.com/perezvon/fcc-dice-game/ and tell if it deserves a spot to replace the current intermediate algorithms section.

I will be waiting for your views on this. Happy coding.