I’m happy to report that I have survived the entire Troy Larson Packs course. I wanted to make some comments about it for the people who haven’t taken it yet, those who are still going through it, or those thinking about taking it. I think of myself as a big newbie: I’m 6 feet tall and have been working with Coda for a bit over 2 years. However, I go back a long way in the world of programming. I actually programmed with punch cards in Fortran and Basic. There is a rumor I had a pet pterodactyl that I fed sardines to while writing my code. That is not totally true. In simple terms, you need to understand that Packs are vitally important to the future of Coda. Anybody listening to the Coda Brain information understands right away that Packs are the key to getting other systems to talk to Coda and Coda Brain. Learning about Packs is complicated. Troy Larson prepared every lesson thoroughly and provided an incredible amount of support and assistance. Here are 4 things I think you need to keep in mind: First, it has been said that “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”. This is why do you need to take this course: Either you need to know enough about Packs to know that you can create them, or that you want to get somebody who knows how to create them it to do it for you. You also need to understand that a Pack might or might not be the answer for what you’re trying to accomplish. Second, you should take the Packs course, because as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, sometimes the “journey is the destination”. You’re going to learn a lot in this course that you didn’t know and didn’t know you needed to know. You will gain a huge respect for how Coda works behind the scenes. You’ll also have a better understanding of how some of the packages you know and love, like Slack and Google, actually work. Third, not all systems in the world are existing commercial software systems. It’s great to have a Pack for Gmail or JIRA, but, going into the future, I think we’re going to discover a huge marketplace for Packs that go after software used within a corporation designed and built by the corporation itself. For example, in Wall Street, a great many firms write their own software to make sure there are no “back doors”. Because of that, there probably won’t be an API. Even If there is one, a Coda developer is going to have to be able to figure out how to get information from that system into Coda in order to get it into Coda Brain. Fourth, you will learn about complexities you didn’t know were there. You will learn, and I’m going to try to cover this in a separate item, a great deal of what I call “Obvious Hidden Knowledge”: things other people know that are obvious to them but not obvious to you. You need to know these things, or you’ll be adrift. I can’t tell you how much time I lost, because it was assumed by the developers that people would know certain things they didn’t know. Troy Larson spent an egregious amount of time helping me deal with these issues. Some of them were even a surprise to him. In summary, if you have a chance to take this course, run, do not walk, to sign up for it. It is an absolute must. It is mandatory. If nothing else, it has been my experience, as a consultant for a great many years, that often, when I learned a new thing, shortly thereafter, a prospect appeared who needed someone who knew that one thing to get their project off the ground, and I got the contract. If you have any questions, please let me know. And thank you, Troy!

I'm an old software/database developer that spent years consulting but then stepped out for 20 years to raise my 6 kids. Getting back in the game now and trying to update my skills. I've looked into APIs and pack building and it always feels overwhelming and I quit. But I met Troy through the Coda experts program and found out he was going to teach a class on Coda pack building. I signed up and I have not been disappointed. Troy's style is both challenging and laid back. He breaks things down into pieces that are easy to understand. The lessons are small enough not to overwhelm anyone whether you are technical or non technical. We built a few packs in class and Troy not only taught us to build packs in the Coda Pack Studio but also in Visual Studio Code. I haven't used VS in years and was hesitant to jump back into it, but Troy walked us through setup and even created some tools to make the process easier. Now I can build packs in Coda's Pack Builder or VS Code and I'm looking forward to tackling my first pack on my own. I highly recommend Troy's class and I don't give out high marks easily but Troy gets a 10 out of 10!

Sometimes (oftentimes) in life, we need a guide. Sometimes (rarely) we find the right one. Troy is that guide. He will bridge the gap between where you are right now and where you want to be. He will lay down bricks across the riverbed of "I have no idea how to go about learning this" AND across the river sidearms of "I had no idea I needed to learn this". He'll guide you every step of the way, serving on a silver platter all the content that has so far eluded you (what's an API schema? How do I identify the required scopes for O-Auth? How do I filter an API request with user-specified parameters). And, he'll do it in a way of an ever-supportive coach, allowing you to bask in the victorious feeling of "I DID THIS!" (while being way too kind to mention that, actually, he is the one who led you to the water). Are you interested in understanding how API work? Do you wish to reduce your reliance on middleware tools like Zapier? Are you ready to explore how to build your very own data integrations? If so, do your future-self a favor and set yourself up for success by taking this course. Your present-self will enjoy the learning experience as well.