Two months since my last post here. I have been drowning in an ocean of confusion for a long time. Since all this learning I’m trying to do is with the aim to get a job, I have had to think hard about what my plan of action should be. I have switched to working with Java only (for now).
I’m working through 2 courses currently CS108 from Stanford and CS61B from UCBerkeley. There are no video lectures for CS108 available online but the handout notes are thorough and one main objective of the course is “Doing stuff by yourself”. Leveraging the power of the internet and seeking answers on your own. So, its not a huge hurdle that the lectures aren’t available.
CS108 is a project based course where the aim is to learn a lot more about Java & OOP and work on bigger projects. The amount of starter/helper code is reduced to nil very soon into the course.
CS61B on the other hand has lectures available on youtube. But the homeworks and projects that are part of the curriculum leave you in the deep without much help. Again emphasizing the importance of doing things yourself. This is a Data Structures course in Java. It’s very challenging and some of the problems are hard to crack that take a long time. But this is good practice for competitive programming, I guess.
So look forward to the projects and homeworks from these courses. They are much more meaty and challenging hence more fun to do!!
while (CodingIsFun) 
hi. i bumped in to your blog when i googled for a solution for a cs106a problem.
I was planning to do do cs106b after cs106a.
would like to get your thoughts on why you did not follow through with cs106b?
I am picking up programming after 14 years. My objective is to develop apps not sure iOS or Android yet.
Thanks in advance for your reply.
Hi. 106b is an awesome course
Sorry I didn’t mean to publish that alone.
I learned a ton of challenging stuff in 106b. But I am trying to do a more focused way of learning. And I was advised to first get to know a single language well. My goals are more towards web and related technologies so I decided to go back to java.
It was a very hard decision because I was enjoying 106b so much.
thanks for the reply. I will do cs106b.
I bumped into this quota discussion – http://www.quora.com/What-s-the-most-useful-class-at-Stanford
which may be of help to you.
Thanks
re read your posting.
Web and web related programming is good. But Mobile Web is better
I learned that if the trends are in mobile and Android phones far out numbering iPhones.
So the path I documented was Java (but with deep Software Engineering – Object oriented, algorithms etc), HTML5/CSS, JavaScript.
for iOS – Java (but with deep Software Engineering – Object oriented, algorithms etc), HTML5/CSS, ObjectiveC, Swift (new language from Apple)
just my 2 cents.
Thanks! I agree with you and I’m following the same path that you are for Android. But I’m more interested in the backend part of the web so my focus is on Java EE servlets/JSP and Spring Framwork. Plus I’m also learning and practising Data structures and Algorithms.
Re: Course reader for CS106A.
The course reader does not have all the chapters discussed – chapter 12 and 13.
Did you buy the book or manage without the book?
I had borrowed it from someone who had it.