How to: Nov 8, 2024
1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course on AI fundamentals. You'll learn a ton of Machine Learning concepts like regularization, overfitting, and bias-variance trade-off. You'll also learn how to use Python to implement Linear Regression, Neural Networks, and other key algorithms. Then you'll cement your understanding through case studies on recommendation engines and predictive analytics systems. (11 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-the-foundations-of-machine-learning-and-artificial-intelligence/

2. And if you want even more practice implementing AI systems, freeCodeCamp instructor Ania Kubów just published a new course on using Retrieval Augmented Generation to build a chatbot. You'll learn how to take an off-the-shelf foundation model like GPT-4, then embed your own custom datasets. Ania will even guide you through deploying your bot to the cloud, so you can show it off to your friends. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-your-own-rag-chatbot-with-javascript/

3. On this week's podcast, I talk with Jerod and Adam – hosts of the longest-running software podcast on Earth: the Changelog. We talk about how open source is changing, and they share some pretty wild stories. We also discuss how more companies are self-hosting their own infrastructure. And we talk about Open Data and Open AI Models. I hope you enjoy these conversations and their many insights as much as I do. (90 minute watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/open-source-the-changelog-podcast-148/

4. As my friends at The Changelog often say: “Software is eating the world. And open source is eating software.” This new freeCodeCamp course will show you how to navigate Open Source like a pro. You'll learn key open source concepts and terminology. Then you'll learn how to identify good projects to contribute to, and how to navigate their codebases. Finally, you'll learn how to submit good pull requests that maximize the chances of your code getting merged in. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/become-an-open-source-master/

5. Learn how to write Clean Code – a widely-respected approach to building maintainable software. This tutorial will teach you the key Clean Code principles, such as the Single Responsibility Principle, Dependency Minimization, testing best practices, and more. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-write-clean-code-tips-for-developers/

Quote of the Week: *"Every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it."* – John McCarthy, all the way back in 1956. He was a computer scientist who created the Lisp programming language.