HN user
The newer courses seriously lacking any tangible depth or usefulness
Interesting. I have to admit that I didn't participate in one of the newer coures yet.
Sure, good ideas != good execution.
I like Udacity's new focus on courses designed by companies.
Traditional education is far too detached from what is required in industry, and has trouble keeping up with the pace of innovation.
Selling something may not create value, but it does realize it.
I like PG's distinction of wealth (i.e. value) and money: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
So, while selling realizes a monetary gain, it does not necessarily create wealth also.
Here is why I still think it does create wealth:
* there is economic value in allocating resources efficiently
* (non-monetary) user acquisition increases the value of network effect driven products
* money goes to work when infused into a productive company (instead of being idle, money is invested in wealth creating assets)
Teaching myself, I found the following resources helpful:
* Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial: http://ruby.railstutorial.org/
* Steve Huffman's Web Development Class: https://www.udacity.com/course/cs253
* Balaji Srinivasan's Startup Engineering Class: https://www.coursera.org/course/startup