- [Why require experience with a sizable project before the Software Engineering courses?](#why-require-experience-with-a-sizable-project-before-the-Software-Engineering-courses)
### What is a good course to learn a particular language?
OSSU focuses on finding the best courses to learn computer science topics, and isn’t focused on finding language specific courses. If you are looking to learn a particular language or framework there are two great resources to check.
1. [Hackr.io](https://hackr.io/) allows users to submit and upvote learning resources for topics such as Python or the Java Spring Framework.
2. Most languages have a community on reddit. When you find the community’s page, check to see if there is a wiki or sidebar with resources. For example, see [/r/python](https://old.reddit.com/r/Python). Note that the sidebar content can be different depending on whether you use www.reddit.com or old.reddit.com.
### Why is the Firebase OSSU app different or broken?
The OSSU curriculum and ecosystem have been collaboratively built by many individuals. The Firebase app was one such contribution. When it was written, it was with the intention of helping future OSSU students.
Unfortunately, the app has not been updated in many years. It does not reflect updates to the curriculum, it contains links to courses that no longer exist, and it has known bugs that prevent students from logging in.
It is our hope that the creators of the Firebase app can bring the app up to date. Until that time, the firebase app should be considered a deprecated product that is no longer supported.
### Does every resource in the main curriculum have to be free?
Yes, that is a core goal of OSSU.
At the same time, we recognize that education is a resource that requires payment to instructors to make it sustainable in the long term.
Therefore, we respect the business model of websites like edX, which make their materials free but with some paid add-ons, like official certificates or extra interaction with course instructors.
So we only require that the *learning materials* of a resource be free to access, not that every possible add-on be free.
It would be ideal if graded assignments were always free. In the event that free assessments are not available OSSU looks for alternate assessments to pair with a course.
If you just want to watch the videos, it is never necessary for any edX course on our curriculum. Note that a number of edX courses only allow students to audit a course for the estimated number of weeks it takes to complete. Students should not begin a course until they are prepared to focus and complete the course.
We are retaining this in the curriculum for now because it is one of the few chances the student has to play with manual memory management in a (relatively) low-level language.
By learning C, students will also have a much easier time getting through the following course, Nand2Tetris.
You can read more about our curricular guidelines and the qualifications of the guidelines' authors [here](CURRICULAR_GUIDELINES.md). If you find a topic that is required by our guidelines and is not included in the curriculum, we should make a change! Read more about [contributing to a change](CONTRIBUTING.md).
Of course, if you find that the curriculum is missing a pre-requisite for a course that isn't part of a normal high school curriculum, please let us know!
### Why require experience with a sizable project before the Software Engineering courses?
Software engineering tries to solve the problem of dealing with large programs. Building a sizable program before taking the SE courses will help you understand what SE is trying to solve. We recommend the Jack-to-VM-code compiler project from the nand2tetris course because it's the first project in the curriculum that is complex enough to see value in a SE course. That said, any sizable project will do and can come from outside of the OSSU curriculum. The idea is that you've done some large enough project where the pieces started to feel unmanageable. This experience will expose pain points and lead to a better understanding of SE.
