How to: Nov 15, 2024
1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive full-stack development course that will help you learn modern JavaScript tools by building your own dating app. This course will walk you step-by-step through setting up Next.js, Prisma, and NextAuth. You'll even deploy your app to the web using Vercel. Along the way, you'll add interactive features with Pusher for real-time web socket messaging, and Cloudinary for media uploads. This is an ideal course if you want to expand and solidify your web dev skills. (7 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-deploy-a-full-stack-dating-app/

2. Learn how to harness the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) through this Generative AI course freeCodeCamp just published. You'll learn key concepts like data preprocessing, fine-tuning, and Retrieval Augmented Generation. You'll also learn how to use popular tools like Hugging Face and LangChain. By the end of this project-oriented course, you'll have built your own AI pipeline and vector database, and deployed your app to the cloud. (22 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-generative-ai-for-developers/

3. On this week's podcast I interview Google Machine Learning Engineer turned Stanford Researcher Yifan Mai about the state of AI. He runs the open source HELM project, which benchmarks the capabilities of LLMs like GPT-4 and Llama against one another. We talk about the ragged frontier of LLM use cases, Open Weight models and how they're different from open source software, and his predictions for how AI will impact the job market. I had a blast and learned so much from this conversation. And I think you will, too. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/open-weights-vs-open-source-with-google-engineer-and-stanford-researcher-yifan-mai-podcast-149/

4. Most developers I know use Git constantly. I certainly do. And one tool that helps keep me sane is Git aliases. These are custom shortcuts that dramatically reduce the amount of typing you have to do in your command line. This tutorial will teach you how to create your own custom Git aliases – with custom parameter syntax – and make them globally accessible throughout your developer environment. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-simplify-your-git-commands-with-git-aliases/

5. The Go programming language is growing in popularity among devs who want to write high-performance code. If you want to get into Golang, this tutorial will teach you the foundational concepts. You'll learn about Go's data types, control structures, pointers, error handling, concurrency, standard library, and more. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/key-golang-concepts-for-beginner-go-devs/

Quote of the Week: *"Brainpower is by far our scarcest resource."* — Edsger Dijkstra, programmer and computer scientist