Tutorials FAQ

Developer Tutorials FAQ

Contents

Who are TalkIT’s tutorials aimed at?
What’s the difference between a tutorial and a course?
What can I learn?
How much will it cost?
What is in a full length course?
What support can I get when working on a tutorial?
How can I find a tutorial on the website?
How do I get a certificate of completion
What Microsoft certifications can the course help me prepare for?
How will I learn using a tutorial?
How are TalkIT tutorials different from other e-learning websites?
What is the background to creating the tutorials?


Who are TalkIT’s tutorials aimed at?

Training CourseTalkIT has created its own e-learning platform to train software developers. This is aimed at anyone who wants to learn a new technology or language from novice to advanced level. You will learn step-by-step how to build business applications and databases.

What’s the difference between a tutorial and a course?

A tutorial covers some specific features and can take an hour or two to complete. These can be done by themselves. A course is a set of numbered tutorials. These are best done from start to finish as they can build an application step-by-step. The courses require a subscription.

What can I learn?

On the TalkIT website there are currently well over a 100 tutorials. This is increasing all the time. The topics include:

  • SQL Server Development
  • SQL Server Administration
  • Visuals Studio
  • Programming in C# and VB using OOP
  • ASP.Net MVC & Web Forms
  • Windows Forms
  • Windows Presentation Foundation
  • Windows Communication Foundation
  • Data Access with ADO.Net, LINQ and the Entity Framework
  • HTML 5
  • CSS3
  • JavaScript
  • Java
  • C++ (in production)
  • Python (in production)

You can look at all the tutorial titles at:http://talk-it.biz/training/tutorials

To make it easier to find a tutorial you can filter them topic.

How much will it cost?

Many of the shorter tutorials are free. As a launch offer until December 2014 only, a subscription to a full length courses cost £4.99. Or you can buy a Gold subscription to all courses for £9.99.

What is in a full length course?

We currently have 3 full length courses: C#.Net, HTML5 and MVC. These require a subscription, but the first tutorial in a course is free.

The C#.Net course includes these tutorials:

  1. Introduction to .NETApp
  2. Core C# Features
  3. Defining Types
  4. Defining Members
  5. Going Further with Types and Members
  6. Inheritance and Interfaces
  7. Delegates, Events, and Lambda Expressions
  8. Generics
  9. Using .NET Framework APIs
  10. File Handling and Serialization
  11. Additional C# Language Features
  12. LINQ to Objects
  13. ADO.NET Entity Framework
  14. Overview of WPF
  15. Overview of WCF
  16. Multithreading and Parallelization
  17. Dynamic Programming

The HTML5 course includes these tutorials.

  1. Getting Started with HTML5, CSS and JavaScript
  2. JavaScript OO Programming
  3. Looking at Events
  4. Using JQuery
  5. Creating HTML5 Content
  6. CSS3 Techniques
  7. CSS3 Transformations and Animations
  8. Graphics with Canvas
  9. Working with Text
  10. Video and Audio
  11. Graphics with Svg
  12. Geolocation
  13. Web Storage
  14. Files and Data
  15. Ajax
  16. Web Sockets
  17. Web Workers

The MVC course includes these tutorials

  1. Industrial Strength Applications
  2. Test Driven Development
  3. View Techniques
  4. Implementing Navigation
  5. State Management
  6. Using Ajax and jQuery
  7. Using jQuery Mobile
  8. ASP.NET RESTful Web API

The Java course includes these tutorials

  1. Getting Started with Java
  2. Java Language Fundamentals
  3. Operators and Flow Control
  4. Defining and Using Classes
  5. Arrays
  6. Additional Language Features
  7. Additional Java SE Classes
  8. Inheritance
  9. Interfaces
  10. Collections and Generics
  11. Exceptions and Assertions
  12. Inner Classes
  13. File Handling
  14. Accessing Databases using JDBC
  15. Multithreading
  16. Java Swing

The C++ course includes these tutorials

  1. C++ language fundamentals
  2. Operators and Flow Control
  3. Functions
  4. Arrays
  5. Pointers and References
  6. Going Further with Types
  7. Defining and Using Classes
  8. Additional Class Techniques
  9. Dynamic Arrays and Vectors
  10. Lists and Maps
  11. Inheritance
  12. Operator Overloading
  13. Copying and Assignment
  14. Advanced Overloading Techniques
  15. Templates

What support can I get when working on a tutorial?

Trouble
The tutorials are designed to be easy to use. They make learning technology painless by including clear descriptions, images, code downloads and videos.

But if you get stuck working while working on a tutorial, you can get help by asking a question. Just type your question in the comment section at the bottom of each tutorial. A TalkIT trainer or other people with experience of the tutorial will then post a reply.

How can I find a tutorial on the website?

First look at the tutorials page.Tutorial Screen

http://talk-it.biz/training/tutorials

This will show the titles of the tutorials. Some are free, but some require a subscription. You can browse through the tutorials titles till you find what you are looking for. This may take some time as we have over 70 tutorials.

Alternatively, you may find it easier to filter the tutorials by topic. Just select your topic in the left hand pane. The tutorial titles that cover that topic will then be shown in the right hand pane. Then just click to start the tutorial.

How do I get a certificate of completion?

Once you have subscribed, TalkIT can monitor some of your activity on the website. But as the tutorials are designed to allow you to work when you want, we do not know exactly when you have finished a course. So just email TalkIT with the date you have completed all the tutorials in the course. Include the title of the course. TalkIT will then send you a certificate of completion for that course.

What Microsoft certifications can the course help me prepare for?

ProblemsThe certifications are:

MTA Developer (Technology Associate)
MCSD Windows Store Applications, Web Applications, SharePoint Applications (Solution Developer)
Oracle Certified Java Associate
Oracle Certified Java Professional
To find the specific exams codes look at the top of each tutorial.

The courses are best used with other study methods and practical experience to prepare for an exam. Take a look at an overview of the Microsoft and Java certifications and the skills measured in each exam.

Microsoft Certification Overview
Java Certification Overview

How will I learn using a tutorial?

You will learn by building real applications.  This is similar to what you would do when working on a project for a company. This is done in stages, with new features introduced at each stage. For simplicity, each stage focuses only on a single feature. The complete application solves a real problem and demonstrates best practice. It can be used as a model for future applications.

The TalkIT tutorials guide you through a series of structured labs to create a business application. One of the most useful features are downloads of the completed applications. You can compare what they are building, with the completed correct application. In this way they can make sure you are on track. Alternatively, you can learn by investigating the completed application.

Video clips show in detail how you can work with the development environment. Samples of the code required to build the application are included. These can be edited and copied to assemble the application.

The tutorials provide a balance of guidance, interest and challenge.

How are TalkIT tutorials different from other e-learning websites?

global-analysing-100249350Our tutorials are more comprehensive. Some alternatives use only video. This is helpful to quickly learn individual features, but it is hard to build a real business application from video clips only. Some focus on basic code syntax. While this is necessary, today’s developers need to build complete complex systems that meet client requirements. Our tutorials show them how to do this.

What is the background to creating the tutorials?

The TalkIT tutorials have been created over the last 2 years. We wanted to support people to learn programming in an effective and enjoyable way.

The site has been getting lots of global traffic, so we think we are doing something right. This year we are publishing courses in C++ and Python.

How can you contribute? Just tell us what topics you would like added to the site.

What Programming Language should I learn first?

The first thing I will mention is why? why do you want to learn to program? If your answer is web development then maybe HTML5 and JavaScript is a good starting point. However if you don’t really know what you want to do; then we suggest a good starting point is either Visual Basic or Python. Python is a good starting point for a developers journey in software development; python is easy to read and through the use of indentation creates a good programming style for the future. Python is quick and fun to write and allows you to see your results without much effort and doesn’t require any knowledge of previous languages.

If you move into the world of Visual Basic it will be a bit harder to set up and see your results but it gives an easier transition into more widely used languages such as Java and C# where Object Orientation is widely used. JavaScript with HTML and CSS is one of the easiest to use and setup as there is no need for any specialist software as it can be written in a text file and run on a web browser. You will see your results almost immediately having run the file; and JavaScript is fairly forgiving in the need for understanding variable types and will teach you the basics of functions.

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