YMMV. I chose 'materials' instead of courses specifically since I've found books to be more useful.
A course, or any kind of structured learning, is just a foundation. I would still expect to spend hours outside of the course, but with a good background I can now search for more specific things than if I had started w/ a blank slate.
+1. You can easily turn 10 hours of connecting the dots into 2 hours with the right materials.
Though in my experience, the courses on Udemy/Udacity and the like have been disappointing. I always get the feeling that they're trying to fill up time, and they tend to move really slowly.
> "for some writing code itself is an act that clarifies the still-murky concepts and helps to produce a good writeup."
This is my philosophy after ~2 years of working on distributed systems. I got sick of vague design discussions where everyone has a 5 minute memory.
I am much happier to sit at my desk and figure it out by writing code, then produce a design doc once I have a solid prototype working. It feels more honest and real.
At the same time, I wonder if I'm missing out on a different way of doing things.
A course, or any kind of structured learning, is just a foundation. I would still expect to spend hours outside of the course, but with a good background I can now search for more specific things than if I had started w/ a blank slate.