Evaluate Medium Content for possible replacement

[twalton83]

The Odin Project currently uses a few articles from Medium. Medium paywalls users after they view five articles in a month. Many of these authors crosspost these materials to other platforms, such as their personal blog, Dev.to, and the like. We should replace Medium links with these other free sources as much as possible.

Completion Criteria:

• [x] Identify all areas in which we use Medium in the curriculum (you can easily achieve this by searching the repository for "medium.com"
• [x] Replace the links with non-Medium links. If a non-Medium link does not exist, please keep the content as is.
• [x] Identify alternatives to replace Medium content

[lucitemple]

I'd be happy to work on this.

[twalton83]

@lucitemple Awesome, thank you so much! I'll assign this to you. Please let me know if you have any issues. For each link fix, I'd appreciate if you grouped each course (eg, the "Foundations" course) together in one PR so it's easier to go over rather than having to check all 35 links at different points in the curriculum at once in one big PR.

And if it's not too much trouble, keep track of the ones we couldn't replace because they were not posted elsewhere.

[lucitemple]

Sure thing @twalton83, thank you for the advice about how to best do it (grouping by course for PRs & keeping track of those I can't replace) - this is very helpful for someone new to this, as I am.

[twalton83]

@lucitemple Be sure to check out our contributing guide!

[lucitemple]

Just completed the changes for the nodeJS course. There were three links I couldn't find an alternative to:

1. File: theOdinProject/curriculum/nodeJS/APIs/API-Security.md

   • Stateless Auth with Express Passport

2. File: nodeJS/APIs/APIs.md

   • Using Cors in Express
   • The 7 Restful Routes

[lucitemple]

Have completed find/replace for the foundations and javascript courses.

Links I couldn't find alternatives for in these sections:

Course: Foundations File: foundations/javascript_basics/fundamentals-3.md

• Node Call Stack Explained

File: foundations/tying_it_all_together/conclusion.md

• Choosing the right language

File: foundations/introduction/motivation_and_mindset.md

• More productivity with the pomodoro technique

File: foundations/installations/prerequisites.md

• Micrososft Failed Developers and now has a plane to win them back

Course: JavaScript File: javascript/testing/testing-2.md

• JavaScript: What are pure functions?
• Why I use Tape Insteadof Mocha
• Mocking is a code smell

File: javascript/organizing-js/oop-concepts.md

• S.O.L.I.D. The first 5 principles of Object Oriented Design with JavaScript
• Object-Oriented Programming in JavaScript

File: javascript/organizing-js/classes.md

• Is Class in ES6 the New Bad Part?

File: javascript/finishing-up/conclusion.md

• Currying in Javascript from Kristina Brainwave via Medium

File: javascript/react-js/react-introduction.md

• Function vs Class Component in React

File: javascript/organizing-js/factory-functions.md

• 3 Different Kinds of Prototypal Inheritance

[twalton83]

@lucitemple Thank you so much for your help with this so far!

[lucitemple]

@twalton83 Did you want me to check the links in the archived courses too? I've gone through everything else, mostly having trouble finding an open source alternative for them.

There is the option to swap links for a cached text only version, but many of them include images and formatting important for understanding.

Or perhaps there is a way to inform people of the workaround to accessing Medium articles beyond the free limit (to open links in an incognito window)?

I have saved all the remaining medium links into a file (same info as I've shared in comments here) - is there somewhere I should upload it to?

Thanks!

---

Course: HTML-CSS

File: html_css/responsive_design.md

• Best Practices of Responsive Web Design

File: html_css/css_frameworks.md

• Choosing Bootstrap or Foundation

File: html_css/design_ux.md

• Usability 101 for Startups from Ripul Kumar

Course: Ruby

File: ruby_programming/object_oriented_programming_basics/lesson_oop.md

• Object Relationships in Basic Ruby

File: ruby_programming/testing_with_rspec/introduction_to_rspec.md

• Getting Started with Rspec Part 1

File: ruby_programming/basic_ruby/debugging.md

• Overcoming Ruby Error Messages

File: ruby_programming/basic_ruby/basic_enumerable_methods.md

• Reducing Enumerable

Course: Rails

File: rails_programming/rails_basics/routing.md

• Understanding Rails Routes and Restful Design

File: rails_programming/apis/api_interfacing.md

• this Medium article Integrating a Third Party API with Rails5
• Using an api in Rails for Noobs

[twalton83]

@lucitemple No need, this comment suffices I just wanted to see the remaining. And no, archived courses are archived :)

I personally don’t want to inform people of a workaround because to me, it’s not a good look for the platform to promote that, and if people are interested, they’ll find it.

Thank you for doing this, it’s much appreciated!

[twalton83]

At this point with the minimal number of Medium articles, the issue of running into the article limit is far less great than was prior, so this issue will be closed.