Angela YU — the Complete 2020 Web Development Bootcamp Course Review
By: Jana Bergant
Tags: Angela Yu, Programming, Learn To Code, Udemy, Codingbootcamp

This is a review of Angela Yu’s course: The Complete 2020 Web Development Bootcamp.

You are going to see the pros and cons of taking the Anglea Yu online course. Yes, of course, all these are my personal views.

I’m a self-taught developer and have been working in the industry for 20 years. I also do web courses and am super curious about what makes a course good and why. So, this will be my insights of Anglea’s course and I hope I can help you decide to buy it.

If you prefer to watch video, here it is:

Angela Yu: The Complete 2020 Web Development Bootcamp course review

A general overview of Angela Yu’s web development Bootcamp course

First of all, Angela’s course is one of the best I have looked at lately! Yes, it is.

Why you will say? What makes this course great? Well, it is her! I love her way of presenting and I love the humor that is hidden in many of her videos and takeaways. It just makes it fun!

There is a lot of creative videos inside. Angela has a really good way of teaching each lesson clearly. I love her teaching style, she adds just enough of humor to make it fun.

What I will look at this course is

the content of the course,

the presentation,

and the support provided.

Let’s go step by step.

12 rules of learning to code

She starts with an introduction to the course, how to get the most out of it, I liked the 12 rules of learning to code. Then she explains how the web works. If you are completely new, do not skip these steps. She helps you set up the environment, you will be installing Atom and Visual studio code. She will give you help and tips.

And then you start with the basics like all the other Bootcamp course. You learn HTML and CSS.

Tables as layout. AUCH!!

What annoyed me here was that she shows how to use tables for the layout. Which should never be done! That is what we did 20 years ago when I started. You can go to jail for it now.

The first part of the curriculum

But overall the lessons are thoughtfully crafted and are packed with knowledge!

She proceeds to Bootstrap; which is ok. She could also use Materialize, but Bootstrap is really the best way for a beginner to start creating nice professional websites.

Then she proceeds to Javascript, ES6 features of Javascript, and proceeds to DOM. DOM represents the HTML document.

I like that she added a section on the Command line, even though it is basic, you cannot be a developer without using the terminal. Also, you cannot go without using version control like GIT. So down here you have a GIT and Github section.

Then she introduces the backend development. I wonder why she does not start by explaining what backend and frontend are in the beginning. ??

I would prefer to have a sort of roadmap at the beginning. Like a roadmap from what I know now to where I want to be able to apply for a real job.

Web development is not a linear path.

You can go in many directions. You can focus on front-end development. Or backend development. Or DevOps. Or go into data science and machine learning. But first, you need to find out what frontend means, and backend and DevOps.

You can read an article about how to learn to code in 2020. I will describe both the frontend and backend learning paths in it. I will describe in it, what are the technologies and methods to learn for any of these paths and where you can get the knowledge. I will paste the links to the articles below. Be sure to check them out.

At the beginning of Angela’s course, she has a pathfinder to the course where she directs you where to start with the course based on your previous experience. I like that.

The second part of the curriculum

So in the backend part of the course, she goes teaching node.js programming language. Which is super popular. Most of the instructors teaching Bootcamp usually choose with node.js programming language. It is a server-side javascript so it makes sense to continue with javascript on the backend too. Although learning python would also be a great start for young developers. When you learn node, you also learn about npm and express. With pm, you can install modules. Express is a framework that makes creating backend apps in node.js easier.

Then Anglea continues with the APIs. The web is now built upon API’s so you need to know this concept. She explains what an API is and shows examples. You will learn how to authenticate and make requests to get the data. So super cool section.

Next, the EJS templating system, I would now probably change to Next.js. Ejs is a templating system for node.js. If you would want to do server-side HTML rendering now then you would use next.js with the node.js. But ok. Learning about templating systems is useful.

And you know, web changes fast, so do not despair if something you learn today will be obsolete in two years. You have chosen the developer’s path.

As a developer you will learn how to not be attached to how you do things today, you will be constantly evolving and improving.

Anyways it is good to learn about templating engines, if I made this course then I would prefer to introduce next.js here.

The challenges are a bit easy, well I don’t know, maybe it is best so that you gain self-esteem before you tackle more advanced stuff.

SQL and NoSQL

I also appreciate she teaches both SQL and NoSQL databases. For SQL she chose SQLite, which is cool. She could also go with Postgres which is a popular choice. But she goes through SQL statements that can be applied in every SQL database. So great. And then she shows NoSQL databases and she goes deeper into MongoDb with Mongoose. Cool!

When you add databases to your stack you put it all together into one app, that you learn how to deploy to Heroku.

REST API

Creating your own API is a great challenge. As a developer, you will almost certainly be developing APIs. And you’ll need to know about authentication and security.

She added React in the last month. React is a popular front-end framework to use. So, she updates the course which is good. The last update of the course was in December 2019.

Design tips and tricks

Angela’s course also covers some design tips and tricks. Other Bootcamp courses don’t have it. I liked this section. I’m not much of a designer. But knowing the basics is a lot of help.

Q&A with Angela Yu

And lastly, she added some useful Q&A videos with various questions from codding challenges to healthy eating habits and coffee intake. So fun and useful to watch.

Angela explains several tools and technologies in a clear and concise way, but the entire course feels like you’re talking with an experienced friend.

One of the big challenges students face in this course is that there is practically no support on the Q&As. And that is super important.

You need someone to be there for you. Guide you. Show you how to overcome the biggest challenges and avoid mistakes.

Jana Bergant coach for web development

You need to have an experienced developer guiding you. If you want me to be your guide on your development journey contact me. Here is my email: jana@ucan-courses.com

I will pick a few most determined students that I will guide on their path to getting a programming job. I will give you more info in person.

But let me tell you the truth!

After Angela’s course, you will not be ready to get a job that you’re dreaming of.

React & Node.js

Before applying for any job I would though go deeper with React and node.js. I would take two more courses on deepening my knowledge of React and node.js. This is what I would do.

But it is a great start! I would not want to start anywhere else!

This is the perfect course for beginners! If you are new to web development and you haven’t enrolled for this course, like, what are you doing?

Here is a link to the course. If you click on the link I will get a super small fee. I thank you for supporting me.

Subscribe to my channel and hear tips and tricks about web development.

:)