Ask HN: What's the most useful online course you have watched?

99 points by dexxter 10 years ago | 45 comments

Fellow Hackers, I am bored and want to learn something new.

Have you watched any interesting/useful online courses recently on Coursera/Udemy/edX/OpenUniversity/others?

It can be free/paid and I am open to any discipline.

ericzawo 10 years ago |

Joel Spolsky did a really good one-hour primer on Excel. If you squirm at the thought of spreadsheet anything, this video is for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c

joshschreuder 10 years ago | |

Just wanted to come back and say thanks for posting this.

I don't think I've ever learnt so many great tips about a program I use quite frequently in this short of a video.

ericzawo 10 years ago | | |

I took a course on Excel in high school and was just as shocked as you. It's an excellent, highly informative video. Pass it on!

benjismith 10 years ago |

There's a really excellent course on starting a startup, from Sam Altman (President of YCombinator).

http://startupclass.samaltman.com/

It was delivered as a live lecture at Stanford, with presentations by Sam Altman himself, as well as Dustin Moskovitz, Paul Graham, Adora Cheung, Peter Thiel, Alex Schultz, Kevin Hale, Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, Parker Conrad, Brian Chesky, Alfred Lin, Patrick and John Collison, Ben Silbermann, Aaron Levie, Reid Hoffman, Keith Rabois, Ben Horowitz, Emmett Shear, Hosain Rahman, Kirsty Nathoo, Carolynn Levy, and Tyler Bosmeny.

My favorite presenter is Reid Hoffman, but all the lectures are awesome. If you're a startup founder, you owe it to yourself to watch them all...

liadmat 10 years ago | |

Second this. You can also get this as a podcast, which is just as easy to learn from.

okket 10 years ago |

I really enjoyed the free "CS193P" course from Stanford with Paul Hegarty. It is not 100% up-to-date but still a good start, covering Xcode/iOS8/Swift:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/developing-ios-8-apps-swi...

gbaygon 10 years ago | |

I recommend this course whenever I have the opportunity.

I started iOS programming about a year ago and it really helped me with grasping how to use Auto Layout in XCode, once you learn that the API is easy to pickup if you have some experience in mobile development.

Swift is a pleasure to use.

SixSigma 10 years ago |

Gilbert Strang's linear algebra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK3O402wf1c

Walter Lewin's Classical Mechanics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo28HOrhipc

for the content and the delivery

_kyran 10 years ago |

CS50 https://cs50.harvard.edu/

David Malan in the best lecturer I've ever seen.

Introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming. This course teaches students how to think algorithmically and solve problems efficiently. Topics include abstraction, algorithms, data structures, encapsulation, resource management, security, software engineering, and web development. Languages include C, PHP, and JavaScript plus SQL, CSS, and HTML. Problem sets inspired by real-world domains of biology, cryptography, finance, forensics, and gaming. Designed for concentrators and non-concentrators alike, with or without prior programming experience

sn9 10 years ago | |

+1.

This was my introduction to CS/programming and is the counterexample to any claim that C makes for a terrible first language. It just needs a phenomenal lecturer.

The computing environment gets you going with Linux which avoids IDE handholding and the recitations and other helpful videos and the forums all make for a great learning experience, even for people are complete programming neophytes.

Following it up with something like Coursera's Hardware/Software Interface would be a great way of cementing the concepts.

colund 10 years ago |

I enjoyed Andrew Ng's Machine Learning course on Coursera. Why don't you give it a shot.

Hortinstein 10 years ago | |

Yes, came here to say this. While I never completed the course (started OMSCS @ Ga Tech shortly after), it did cement my desire to focus on machine learning in my graduate studies. Highly recommended!

Nicholas_C 10 years ago | |

Although I didn't finish it I thought it was very interesting as well as accessible for someone without a CS background.

jamesharrington 10 years ago |

This is the best javascript video i've ever seen. if you wait they do deals all the time, no need to pay $200 it will go on sale usually around $15-$20

https://www.udemy.com/understand-javascript/

adnanc 10 years ago | |

Just came across this link from the course authors twitter

Javascript: Understanding the Weird Parts - the first 3.5 hours free on Youtube: https://youtu.be/Bv_5Zv5c-Ts

Also has the entire course at 87% off

https://www.udemy.com/understand-javascript/?couponCode=YOUT...

louisswiss 10 years ago | |

I can second this - even though I have been programming in JS for > 5y, I feel like I have a much better understanding of what is going on 'under the hood' now. I actually bought his other course on AngularJS when I was looking to learn it, and enjoyed it/found it useful enough to immediately buy the vanilla JS course as well. Great stuff!

sotojuan 10 years ago | |

I highly recommend Kyle Simpson's Advanced JavaScript (available at Frontend Masters and Pluralsight). It's also very good. Actually, just watch everything he makes for Frontend Masters!

abraham_s 10 years ago |

CSE341: Programming Languages by Dan Grossman

http://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse341/13wi/#lectur...

askldfhjkasfhd 10 years ago |

Coursera, learning how to learn.

bishes 10 years ago | |

+1 for "Learning How to Learn". Helpful for improving study habits.

DomreiRoam 10 years ago | |

+1, It is useful for everybody (older than 14y?). I think you should follow it before university.

loco5niner 10 years ago | |

Dang, with all these +1's, it looks like I need to pick this back up...

Zelmor 10 years ago | |

This.

theviajerock 10 years ago | |

peternicky 10 years ago | |

joshschreuder 10 years ago |

These are paid, and not exactly a course but the Destroy All Software screencasts are great, and cover a lot of topics like shell scripting, VIM / EMACS, testing, refactoring etc.

https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts

They're by Gary Bernhardt of Wat fame, which is also worth a watch for its presentation style and amusing content:

https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

mjmj 10 years ago | |

Those are soo good. He has a talent for talking while typing and his style of presentation keeps you intrigued and content so densely packed it'll keep you rewinding saying, 'wait, wat was that?'

unixhero 10 years ago |

https://www.udemy.com/an-entire-mba-in-1-courseaward-winning...

dkarp 10 years ago | |

Do you have any more feedback on this? What did you find most useful from the course?

unixhero 10 years ago | | |

I found this course to embody a lot of the "business insights" that you can learn at an MBA. At the end of the course I felt that it added a lot to my knowledge, and I could instantly stuff I picked up in my current position.

DyslexicAtheist 10 years ago | |

udemy has some really questionable business practices

d0lph 10 years ago | | |

go on

geekfactor 10 years ago |

Coursera/UPenn's Aerial Robotics course (https://www.coursera.org/learn/robotics-flight) and more broadly the robotics sequence.

I'm taking now for a diversion (just started) and expect to learn a bit about quadrotor mechanics, sensors & control systems.

quicky123 10 years ago |

This guy is an amazing C#/.Net trainer as well as object oriented programming concepts. Great for people coming from a Javascript background. http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/

blabla_blublu 10 years ago |

I did Creative Problem Solving through Coursera and had a great time participating in the class projects.

There are some great tools which you can use in your everyday life to think innovative solutions to problems. The exercises were incredible fun as well.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/creative-problem-solving

Another course which I highly recommend is Learning How To Learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

rajathagasthya 10 years ago |

Algorithms by Robert Segdewick and Cloud Computing Concepts on Coursera. First is an essential, second is a really good intro into distributed systems.

YesThatTom2 10 years ago |

Introduction to Operations Management Professor Christian Terwiesch brilliantly and understandably explains the math behind "operations".... which explains Lean, Agile, DevOps and everything from running a restaurant to a doctor's office.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton-operations

guzmanovich 10 years ago |

Robert Sapolsky`s lectures on human behavioral biology.

Fascinating, funny and gives insights into many different topics like cultural differences and nationalism.

http://youtu.be/NNnIGh9g6fA?list=PL150326949691B199

kleer001 10 years ago |

Anything else from Brady Haran is pretty fun and educational. Not exactly in the spirit of pedantry and sit-down-and-take-notes, but really fun and engaging (like all good teachers should be, I say)

https://www.youtube.com/user/numberphile

https://www.youtube.com/user/Computerphile

https://www.youtube.com/user/sixtysymbols

https://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos

etc...

martinni 10 years ago |

Getting started with GO with Andrew Gerrand. Not only did it teach me the basics of GO but showing his keystrokes demystified vim as well :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KmHtgtEZ1s

Hortinstein 10 years ago |

Artificial Intelligence for Robotics Programming a Robotic Car

Sebastian Thrun (former leader of Google and Stanford's autonomous driving teams that won the DARPA challenge) teaches a class focusing on the basic methods in Artificial Intelligence to support autonomous vehicles, including: probabilistic inference, planning and search, localization, tracking and control, all with a focus on robotics. Programming examples and assignments apply these methods to building self-driving car like experiments.

Free course!

https://www.udacity.com/course/artificial-intelligence-for-r...

blt 10 years ago |

CS 61c lectures from UC Berkeley. Computer architecture. Ideal if you are good with data structures / algorithms but the machine still feels like magic. It is empowering to understand what the machine is really doing.

hackerboos 10 years ago |

Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl is a good starter course on Rails.

https://www.railstutorial.org/

THEUW 10 years ago |

Course on programming in R: https://www.datacamp.com/courses/intro-to-python-for-data-sc...