Loose course timeframes

[martinbean]

Hi @adamwathan,

It would be good to get a loose timeline for this course. For example:

• How far you’re planning to take the project (I don’t know what percent-complete we’re at).
• The frequency of which new lessons will be posted.
• A rough date when the last lesson will be posted and the course “complete”.

I was excited when this course was originally announced last year as I wanted to level-up my testing game. The release date was then pushed back a couple of times, before launching as “early access” and incomplete in November (https://twitter.com/adamwathan/status/803602748658872320). It’s now more than six months later, the course is still incomplete, and we can now see you’re splitting your time on things like KiteTail.

I appreciate you are still putting time and effort into this course, but the longterm roadmap would be good to see.

[adamwathan]

Hey @martinbean, I appreciate the message!

The course has turned out to be much, much bigger than I naively expected; building an entire app at a level of quality that I think makes it a useful reference and documenting every step in well-structured video format has turned out to be a huge amount of work. 20-25 hours sounds really long for a course, but a surprisingly short amount of time to build an app.

I'm still following the general outline that I published here:

https://gist.github.com/adamwathan/dabbac0bbb7829fd3dd2d6e130bed77b

...but I'm trying to carefully figure out ways to get through the rest of the content in a way that is more digestible and realistic for people to actually get through. An example of that would be with the last course module, where I added a handful of tests and functionality behind the scenes instead of recording every single step, because a lot of it is fairly repetitive and not presenting new ideas that we haven't covered so far.

I think at this point in the course we've nailed a lot of the fundamental workflows and ideas, so for the remaining features we're adding I'll be focusing a lot more on the new ideas and concepts needed to solve those problems, and keeping any of the repetitive stuff behind the scenes. We won't be rushing or anything like that, I just don't want folks to have to watch a 12 minute video to only see 3 minutes of something new that hasn't been covered previously.

New lessons are going to published tomorrow, and I'm going to try my very best to publish every single week, even multiple times a week if I can.

I'd like to have the whole course published before Laracon at the end of July, so another 7-8 weeks to get everything released.

Thanks a ton for your support and patience! I hope the content so far has been helpful 👍

[martinbean]

Awesome. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, @adamwathan!

It would be good if the course did wrap up before Laracon. Would love to chat to you about it in person there 😄

[sergiu-popa]

@adamwathan, I have absolutely no problem if you don't finish the course until then, or until the the end of the year... as long as you add at least one video each week... you can go as far as 2018-2019... Really, no problem here :smile:

[gadam]

Totally agree and thanks @adamwathan for sharing all that knowledge

[ghost]

Totally agree and thanks @adamwathan for the course so far, which I am thoroughly enjoying, I too am in no hurry for the course to finish and would be happy even if it became open ended with you adding to it as and when you find new areas to cover.

That said I am particularly keen to see more front end / Dusk workflows, As each year goes by, I seem to be gradually working more and more with Javascript front ends, than with PHP, in particular, working more on SPA's using a lot of Vue/Angular and React and would be keen to see more examples of Test Driven Development bringing the Front End into the normal, test, refactor repeat cycle, as it all still feels a little disjointed and awkward compared to the familiar cycle I am used to using TDD in Laravel, and must admit that the mention of covering Dusk testing in the original roadmap, was one of the key selling points for me that inspired me to reach for my debit card.

So any indication of when there will be more front end coverage would be greatly appreciated

[jusahah]

I (also) think there is no hurry. Quality and clarity of content is more important than keeping fixed deadlines.

Great course so far.

[martinbean]

Just to clarify to those who have since responded. My issue wasn’t with there being no strict deadlines, but rather there not seeming to be any indication of progress or timeframe of the course’s length. New lessons just appeared. But now I know @adamwathan’s aiming to have something finished for Laracon, my concern has been allayed.

[sauladam]

@adamwathan I wish this course would go on forever :-D

So yeah, take your time. I (and obviously all the fellow discussants above me) don't really give a damn about any deadlines or release dates. I've paid for quality content and so far I've seen nothing but that.

Honestly, when I bought the early access in November I really couldn't imagine how on earth someone could get such a quite complex and a fully (and I mean fully!) tested app out the door in such a short time as you had announced while also documenting the whole process. I'm kind of relieved to see that real world projectd really need time, evolve during their creation and move at a pace that is familiar from my own projects of a similar scale. It's that 20/80 thing: You get 80% done in 20% of the time, but the last 20% take four times as much.

Anyway: TDL is one of the best things I've paid money for and I didn't regret a single cent of it. I could have bought beer (or, as in Canada, maple syrup), but I bought your course instead, and so far it's better than beer. Maybe even better than maple syrup. And if you like beer, maple syrup and lame stereotypes as much as I do you'll know what a hell of a compliment that is!

Keep up the awesome work!

[adamwathan]

Thanks for the awesome feedback everyone, means the world to me that you are getting your money's worth from the course! 🙌

[mvdnbrk]

@adamwathan great course Adam! Keep going :)

[ivanvermeyen]

@adamwathan your course is so much more than just TDD. It's also extremely valuable to watch you make design choices about how the app should behave... This makes me try and apply YAGNI (I love that term) and keep things as simple as possible to start with. But I must admit, it's very easy to stray from the TDD path :) Mostly because I don't yet have a clear mental picture of the flow I should be working towards.

We are very lucky to have you as a mentor! I hope there will be more videos in the future, in this course or maybe another. I will gladly pay for it!

[roni-estein]

Sorry, fat thumb while scrolling. Clearly we know Readdle needs so testing on their undo send button, I'll refer them to this course.

+1 to the design decisions during videos. It's very informative. Also the front end testing, extending TDD to the vue or react layer would be great. I too program php and JavaScript with a totally different mindset. Would be great to see it applied.

-Roni

On Jun 9, 2017, 10:07 AM -0500, Ivan Vermeyen notifications@github.com, wrote:

@adamwathan your course is so much more than just TDD. It's also extremely valuable to watch you make design choices about how the app should behave... This makes me try and apply YAGNI (I love that term) and keep things as simple as possible to start with. But I must admit, it's very easy to stray from the TDD path :) Mostly because I don't yet have a clear mental picture of the flow I should be working towards. We are very lucky to have you as a mentor! I hope there will be more videos in the future, in this course or maybe another. I will gladly pay for it! — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[martinbean]

@adamwathan What’s the ETA on the next set of lessons? It’s been over three weeks since the last ones now.

[sileence]

I have no problem in waiting either. The content so far is worth the time/money invested and more.

Creating a real app can take months even years. Now imagine creating a video course that explains how to create a real app and it's not a simple tutorial that will leave you with more questions than answers. Now imagine creating a video course of top quality that explains how to create a real quality app using TDD and external APIs. This takes time, and I don't mind waiting for it.

Even if there has been a few weeks without new content in this particular course. Let's please remember than Adam continues to create and release new content, I wish I had the time to watch all the Kite app videos, the true is that I haven't even completed the lessons on this course! But even if you do have the time: Adam mentions some books during this course and in his Twitter account. You can buy them and get even more content to read / learn from! You can also practice, apply & discuss what you've learned so far!

I know as a teacher myself that when someone pushes me to publish new content it's because that particular student is eager to learn and he/she really enjoys watching the content I create. There is no bad intention. But I'd like to explain that studying is more than just watching the videos and all the time / energy should not be invested in one particular course / platform, there is a lot of material worth watching / reading. One author can't say it all. To put a silly example, we are all eager to watch the new season of Game of Thrones, right? But in the meantime we can enjoy House of Cards and Better Call Saul... That might be a silly example indeed but I hope it helps to illustrate my point.

[rbruhn]

Time. I can sympathize with needing time. I signed up last year and have only worked through 4 videos. Between work, family, and home projects, where do all of you even find the time!!

[sileence]

@rbruhn I try to allocate some time for each activity through the day and to create some good habits to replace the bad ones. For example before going to bed, especially when I'm not particularly sleepy, I take the time to read a chapter from the current book I'm reading instead of browsing Facebook or staring at the ceiling.

[adamwathan]

@martinbean New lessons are coming today! 🤘🏻

[martinbean]

Creating a real app can take months even years.

@sileence I get that. I’ve been a web developer myself for nearly 10 years now. But at the same time I’ve bought a product. I am in no way questioning the quality of the course, but it’s because it is of such a high quality that it’s frustrating having to wait weeks between updates when all I want to do is plow through a video course I’ve pre-paid for and level up my testing skills. But we’re over seven months in now and not even half-way through the published outline. Because “real-world” applications can take years to build, does that mean it should be expected this all-in course should also take years to conclude?

It’s just a bit disheartening to see efforts publicly being put into other endeavours when this one is far from complete, and feeling a bit de-prioritised despite parting with cash.

[FatBoyXPC]

@martinbean it's called "early access" for a reason. We're all excited for more content, but patience is key when you sign up for essentially a 'beta'. To be honest, we've all received way more than $140 worth of material between his current videos, access to pick his brain via this repo, etc.

[adamwathan]

Hey all, appreciate the support but don't sweat it; @martinbean's points are totally valid and I feel the same way; I want to get more stuff out faster, and I'm committed to making that happen.

[LasseRafn]

I feel bad for only giving you whatever I paid for the amount of content you provide. Its such a great resource! I'm trying to feature and promote this course as much as possible.

[gocanto]

@adamwathan Actually, I was about to ask about it. I just wonder why there is not new episodes or whether the course ended! :+1:

[adamwathan]

Sorry guys! Laracon threw a bit of a wrench into my schedule but I'm caught up now, have cleared everything else off of my plate, and will be recording new lessons every single day until we're finished 😊 Look for a new set of videos tomorrow afternoon!

Promised my wife we'd have this wrapped up before the baby arrives, and I've only got a couple weeks left now! 😄

[Kalec]

Promised my wife we'd have this wrapped up before the baby arrives, and I've only got a couple weeks left now! 😄

Ah well, now that the wife is involved, we know we will get to the end of the course soon 🤣.

But please, don't rush it! So far the quality of the course is top notch, and worth every penny you charge for it (and more!). I'd rather you took time to enjoy the new lvl1 human and kept adding to the course as you can, than just rushing it in with a potential loss of quality/content. Keep it up! ☺️

[gocanto]

Agree with @kalec

[ohnotnow]

Part of me would quite enjoy hearing a true-to-real-life end to the course along the lines of 'God, I haven't slept for days... so... urm... testing... yeah... is that a smelly nappy? I haven't slept for days you know. What was I doing?....' ;-)

[mkarnicki]

Only today I learned about the outline of the course. WOW. Mind. Seriously. Blown. I'm so happy right now :D. The $140 we paid for the early access initially wasn't a cost I spent lightly. However, now I value the course at $400, and I'm not even kidding. I know so much wouldn't be digestible for some, but honestly if I knew there would be so much material of such great quality, I would still buy it. And the best part is Adam didn't really need much marketing. I bet most of the participants tell everyone else about the course.

I appreciate's the OP's requests and I'm happy to hear Adam will now be publishing regularly 👍

Looking forward to new episodes 💯