I just completed the Offline-First course. I must say it became progressively more frustrating as I approached the end. I continually wrote “fetch(response)” even though I know it is “fetch(request)”. I swear Visual Studio Code has it in for me and changes my text just to annoy me. Another example, why else would it keep typing “I f” instead of “if”? All in all, it might just be an indication that I am pushing myself too hard and not getting enough sleep.

Anyway, I have moved on to the next course on ES6 = ES2015, which probably should come before the Offline-First course even though the Offline-First course only uses ES5. And I just ran into this sentence:

This behavior prevents variables from being accessed only until after they’ve been declared.

Here it is fixed:

This behavior prevents variables from being accessed until after they’ve been declared.

Here it is fixed a different way:

This behavior allows variables to be accessed only after they’ve been declared.

You can’t have it both ways. You are welcome.

I also disagree with the average of nothing being zero (0).

I am starting to run into very familiar problems that Udacity courses seem to always fall into. The first is outdated content. Given that Udacity and Google started accepting applications for the Grow with Google Challenge Scholarship months ago, you would think they would have time for one person to walk through the course material and notice that, gee, the current version of Google Chrome Canary looks nothing like the version of Google Chrome Canary in the video. They could then maybe write some notes at the bottom of the video pointing out the differences and how to accomplish in the newest version what you need to accomplish.

The second is a rash of putting the cart before the horse episodes. It was just plain cruel to point out how useful MDN is as a reference immediately after the quiz where you needed to use MDN as a reference. Those references need to be introduced before we need them, not after. They should also be listed as usable links underneath the quiz video/interactive page.

Finally, about those quizzes used as pause buttons. I really dislike having to click a button that says “I just did this really great thing!” when I have done nothing of the sort. Every “quiz” like this needs to have an “I have yet to accomplish this great thing, but I just want to move on anyway” button. I would think Udacity would want to know how many people are just blitzing through the material and don’t really care about actually doing what the quizzes are asking them to do, or how many people get stuck on any one particular quiz and just give up because they really don’t have any other choice.

UPDATE: There is such a button. It says “View Answer” and it is right next to “Submit Answer”. I don’t know how I forgot about it and missed it this time around.

This course starts out strong and I like the dynamic between the two instructors, but here in the middle of Lesson 3 we are starting to slide into familiar territory. The lessons are about one thing (e.g. service workers), but the quizzes are about another (e.g. finding information on the web about responses and string comparisons). We just (in 3.15) had a quiz that sets you up for one answer (using fetch() in a new Response), only to leave you baffled as to why we just use fetch(), no new Response needed.

(Hmm, fetch() returns a Response. Maybe it was obvious in retrospect.) Be that as it may, they make a big deal of it, but they don’t really explain it.

And another recurring Udacity problem is the out-of-dateness of the material. That seems especially unforgivable with the big build-up to this course. The (video) material is about two-years old, and there has been no attempt to update the course notes. Considering that they are encouraging us to live on the bleeding edge by downloading and using Google Chrome Canary, you would think that they would have expected everything to change a great deal in a short amount of time.

I have yet to complete my iOS Developer Nanodegree as I am trying to finish up my final project before I actually begin. That is finally starting to wrap up. But I am now beginning a new endeavor on Udacity called the “Grow With Google Challenge Scholarship” on the “Mobile Web Specialist” track, and I will write about it here. Today is Day 0.

#GoogleUdacityScholars and #GrowWithGoogle