All right.
So I have some good news, which is that in the next video, we're going to start typing code.
We're going to start with SQL.
The bad news is that we still have to make it through this video.
Hopefully it's not too painful.
Essentially, what I want to talk about is different types of content in the course and how the course
really works.
It might be a little different than other courses you've taken online, depending on how they were structured.
Basically, I break the content into a couple of different categories.
The first are things like this video where it's a video of me talking usually with blue and you know,
you don't have to watch them, but kind of just serve to introduce content.
It's a way for me to kind of interact with you, to say hello and to set the stage for what comes next.
And if you're someone who has no patience for that sort of thing, absolutely.
Skip it.
So then after that, we've got the actual content of the course, the lectures.
So there are a ton of videos where it's mostly screencast and I'm explaining concepts.
I usually make a bunch of diagrams, slides, I try and make things somewhat visually interesting.
I'm not a great graphic designer, but try and keep things interesting to look at.
And then I also type code and there's a lot to watch there ideally.
So it's a combination of slides with me talking over it as well as diagrams and animations and then
most of the time typing code in our text editors and running SQL code.
So those are the lecture videos.
But then we've also got and this is probably the most important part, more so even than the lectures
which are the exercises.
So one of the things that I think makes my courses stand out a bit, some of the feedback I've gotten
has to do with exercises and activities, and I think the really, really central to making a good course.
So I kind of throw them everywhere in the course.
And then within those exercises we've got a couple of different categories of challenges.
The first are what I would call Rapid Fire, basically pause the video.
I'll ask you a question, very short quiz type questions.
And then there are the second type of exercises which usually come at the end of a section, the last
video typically, and it's an entire video dedicated to exercises.
Usually there's like 5 to 10 challenges in that video.
And then following that, there's always a solution video where I go over the solutions, I tell you
the answer, and then also show you myself coding them.
And as always, the solution code is available.
If you don't care to see me, explain it.
If you just want the code, you can get that at any time.
And the final type of challenge is more comprehensive.
It's essentially there are a couple of sections that are entirely devoted to exercises, so they might
have seven or ten different videos, but they're all about one set of problems.
So there's not many of these in the course.
They take a while, but there are a couple of these challenge sections.
So just to reiterate, we've got quick rapid fire questions.
We've got more general kind of summation quizzes and exercises at the end of a section, and then we've
got entire challenge sections.
And of course after every lecture I include the code, all of the commands that I type.
They're in a file that always comes after the lecture, and it always starts with the word code in all
capital letters.
So the last thing I'd like to add is a piece of advice, I guess, which is that I highly recommend
you do the challenges and do these exercises.
Obviously I have no control over that.
You can just skip through everything and just take the pieces of the course you need.
But if you're trying to get the full experience, kind of the way that I designed it, I would do all
the exercises, do the challenges.
Even if that means going at a slower pace, it definitely means you'll go at a slower pace, but you'll
learn much better and hopefully you'll have a better experience.
And with that said, the other component that's really important are the discussion forums.
We have a full time to in the course as well as myself who are here to help you at any point.
So absolutely lean on that, ask any questions you can come up with.
We're here to help.
All right.
On to the code in the next section.