I'm about to start a project on data mining and statistics and the recommended tools are Python and R. As I have never before used R I want to learn about the language before tampering with any of the project code. Also the main structure is already made by someone else and I was asked to add more features.
So that's when this question came to me. Should I get a couple of books on the topic? Am I going to be fine after taking an online course (free or paid) plus some tests and exercises in hackerrank for example? Or do these methods compliment each other so it's best to do both?
What is your opinion? How do you usually get started with programming languages and new concepts?
P.S: If you have any good recommendations on where to start with R it would be much appreciated! But the main topic of the post is still the comparison of the two methods.
Thank you!
Oldest comments (53)
I took many online video based courses. Some of them are very specific and some udemy courses are just rip off of famous resources out there.
My suggestion is start with book.
Once you feel comfortable using R, then you can move on to advanced courses and projects
Video based courses are much easier to follow, I usually go for them too! Plus they fit in any schedule! No matter how much time you can invest.
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out!
(General response, not specific to R)
I choose books because:
I choose online-courses because:
I look if the author(writer/speaker) is reputed for this domain. If he is in the development team, he can explain the "why it's working this way?" and it's something awesome to learn with the vision of the topic (langage or software).
Would you use a book to learn the basics on a fast-developing tool / language? And then maybe videos for the more complex and high-level concepts.
I use real books to search, digital books to learn the basics and videos for contents complex.
For me, the main concern about online courses (and video tutorials) is that the quality depends on the instructor, so is not a solution for every scenario. On the other side, you can't use a book from 2010 for learning modern web development or other evolving technologies.
So I guess it depends on what is your main concern. No matter what you choose, make sure to take 10 minutes to do research about the author/publisher/contents of the book/course.
Bookmarked! :D
In general, my experience is that basic level courses are not really worth it on online format compared to the value of the book. However a complete practical guide that includes advanced topics are really worth it.
Personally, I usually try to find online courses to get me up to speed faster. But studying from a book seems more in-depth
I must confess I never use video courses. I usually buy printed books, and sometimes ebooks.
My first problem with videos is the language barrier (I'm italian): I can read/write english very decently, but I struggle with real time listening. So, if I'm learning/studying something new, I still go with books.
That is a problem to me, too! OTOH most instructors have a very good pronunciation, so it ends up being a point in favor of courses to me, a good opportunity to practice English. Sure, it only works if I'm not totally alien to the subject but I rather read books for studying new domains anyway.
Just start with It... can be hard for some hours... but It will teach you english understanding and will give you access to a different learning approach
Prendi due piccioni con una fava
I can understand that. I've used videos, but only if literally nothing else comes up after weeks of internet searching. Even then, I sometimes have to bring up the transcriptions, even though I'm a native English speaker. Extremely thick accents coupled with broken English can be hard to understand, especially when the code is broken and you have to cross-reference and rewrite it to make it work.
I see them as complementary sources,
This!
Hello Kostas!
I guess you will eventually the best approach to you. It is kind of personal.
Nonetheless, here is what works for me.
I prefer books when entering whole new areas of expertise. In this case, I need to make my own pace, going back and forth in the subject, pausing, taking notes etc. For example, once I had to set up a call center but had zero knowledge of VoIP et al. So I read The Asterisk Book and Getting Started with Elastix.
When I'm acquainted with the subject domain, I find video courses helpful. Since I can assimilate the topic easier, the pace of the course helps me avoiding boredom and procrastination. For example, some time ago we used JAX-RS in my workplace. I'm a well-seasoned Java developer so I burned by free trial of LinkedIn Learning with Alex Theedom's excellent JAX-RS Introduction.
I doesn't mean it will be the same with you, of course :)
A friend of mine could use that asterisk book! Thanks for linking it!
I wouldn't think of using that linked in learning trial ever, I look it up and check if there is anything that fits to my occasion.
I like books, because you can navigate throught it easy and read again many times and is more in-depth.
The blogs are very useful when you had a certain expierence with new language or tool(after read the book?), you can get good topics/guides that other people with more expierence that wrote for their self and everybody.
I think the talks are more good when you have some knowledge in this new lang/tool.
I dont like so much videotutorials/videocourse because my english is only good for read, is very difficult sometimes follow the video, maybe with subtitles....
But is better get a mixin of them, books and videos, this is because I have an account on Safari Books Online, in there you have books(digital), videos and online trainings, is very useful !
Other good site is Packt, good resources !
Finally exist Leanpub is an amazing site of books and courses where anybody can create a course or write/publish a book, is for this that you can get some unique books from people (also they write good blogs ?) that not have an editorial or something like that (fix me if I'm wrong on this).
Of course exists other free stuffs, but if you have some money I think is good give the correct price to this amazing people that have the time to share their knowledge.
Thank you very much! I'll check the links!
As commented in other answers, these kind of videos can help you improve your English. If you can enable subtitles, adjust the speed to your comfort and listen to people who speak clearly you can benefit. On top of that you also learn the point of the video provided it is in a programming context.
Typically I like to start with the official docs for whatever I'm trying to learn. I like having everything in text so I can scan more quickly and jump around/search for whatever I'm trying to find. I think for this reason I've never had much success trying to learn from videos/screencasts. Official docs are usually the most up-to-date resource available which is certainly a positive.
For something fairly well established/stable I think books can be good, but it's hard to recommend them for a newer or quickly changing technology.
Online courses can be good but I think it depends on the format and quality can vary wildly. I think getting recommendations from a community (such as dev.to or a programming subreddit) is a good way to filter for quality options.
By official docs you mean tutorials made by the same team or the actual manual? Because the latter one is a bit hard to follow when you are not familiar with the subject.
Ideally, something like the Vue.js guide or Kotlin Reference.
I know you mentioned you're trying to learn R, I looked up their official docs and they look dense to say the least. The quality of these type of documents certainly varies a lot depending on the project.
I usually always take online courses. I have to do something to learn it, so getting to follow code and type my own at the same time means a lot.
But I also won't dive too far into learning, and would rather just create a project that will let me build, break, and figure things out.
That's pretty complex...
Everyone is different, in everything... in learning too.
For me, videos are bad... can't stand how fast people use to teach through videos.
An example... Wes Bos... It's pretty useless for me.
Too fast
Explaining while doing, without any theory or real explanations
So cool, so useless!
(he's really good with his work... he's nice and a good developer)
But it's all a matter of preferences.
I love to learn theory while doing work and we all need TO BUILD!
Most of the books without any exercise at the end of every chapter, are not well done books.
(Keep in mind that books are expensive sometimes... and subjects are really fast changing nowadays. Books won't get updated!)
BUT
If you've to learn something to get the work done, in some days... you need to learn the needed subject or library, and that can be complicated with books.
You need to skip most of the theory and go straight to the core of what you need.
In this case, videos can be very good.
But still you're memorizing and not really learning.
(I use an online Code school that I really like to learn... but of course, they're not going to cover every possible subject)
I agree with you! The most important aspect is building, breaking and fixing projects.
For short uni projects videos do the job but this time I need to get more in-depth.
In-depth...
you've to go both.
Learning from books and code a lot.
Videos are good tools not only for tutorials, but also for coding video, where you can check how good coders work.
I have two opinions, the opinion how student and how instructor/teacher.
INSTRUCTOR : Its complicated create content, for example "Course of Android" but why?
its complicate for 2 reason
STUDENT: If i need to learn Android topic deeply, i prefer buy a book
In internet you can found a lot of content but the problem is what most is oriented for begginners, maybe for this reason i prefer buy books.
P.D. Sorry for my grammar errors XD
Haha I am quite far from teaching. Not that experienced yet to feel confident.
Thank you for your answer!
In my case I ussually do some steps when I'm learning somethin new:
1.) I start to learn from a video course, try to follow everything. As other people says in other comments is pretty usefull to improve your english and for me is more easy to understand. I can recommend you web pages like, Udemy, Udacity or Pluralsight.
2.) When I complete the course, I look for some book that I could read and learn / understand the most dificult parts. I think that video course in most cases doesn't cover the advanced parts, so I look for a book that can cover this parts.
3.) Create a project that help me to practice everything that I've learned, besides doing that a lot of doubts will come to you so you'll need to research, read, and aks about.
This is my recipe that I'm using for several years and It is still working for me. I hope that can help you.
PS: right now I'm learning python from courses.cognitiveclass.ai/dashboard they are offering for now free courses by IBM. Also there they have a path about R, you should check it.
Thank you! I will check it out!
What I used to learn the basics of python was Learn Python the Hard Way. The author has some humour and there is some repetition in the exercises so you won't forget instantly what you learned after you pass each chapter.
Thank you I'll check it :)