Computer Science Basics

One of the interviews by Courtland had a great suggestion: Don't keep looking for the perfect idea, start with any idea and as you build your audience, the target market will give you better ideas.

I have been creating videos on Mastering Recursion on youtube. It is concise and provides the concepts in a way that you can apply to solve problems. Each video gives the background knowledge you need to know and applies it to solve a problem.

What is different with my videos when there are ton of coding videos on youtube?

1. I spend almost 0% time on IDE. I don't think you can learn coding by watching others type in code in a editor. I give you everything you need so that you can write code in your choice of language.
2. I focus on providing structure and tie all the concepts in a way that makes it easy to apply when solving problems.
3. I focus on giving you a deep understanding of the programming concepts. No memorization or rote learning is required.
4. Visualization is used as much as possible to build the mental models required to become a good programmer.
5. You follow a problem based approach to acquiring coding skills. It is surprising how people with many years of experience cannot solve simple coding problems that is based on basic concepts. You may dismiss it as a toy problem, but you cannot build a castle without a strong foundation.
6. The complexity of the problems gradually increases over time. They use concepts mastered in earlier problems. They expose you to complex concepts that is composed of simple concepts.
7. The videos are 10 minutes or less. It minimizes passive content consumption. You only watch the video if you cannot solve the coding problem.
8. You will learn how to formulate a strategy to solve a problem by analyzing the problem statement.
9. You will master programming language independent skills that will last for the rest of your programming career.
10. You will gain confidence and become a problem solver who is capable of solving any new problems.