Google has announced the launch of Learn, described as a new one-stop destination for developers to achieve the knowledge and skills needed to develop software with Google's technology.

This is more of a reorganization than a launch if you look more closely. Most of the content that you can access from Learn was already available organized by product area and platform, and some of it was found directly on Youtube. The team behind Learn admits that while people liked the content, and were keen to use Codelabs, the resources could be somewhat difficult to find, unless you were already in the know.

To overcome this problem, Google has created Learn to act as a portal that can be used to access all the existing content. They've also reorganized the content to make it easier to find what you’re looking for.

Google has done some work on Codelabs, which were already useful for getting started with tools including Android Wear, Google Compute Engine, Project Tango, and Google APIs on iOS. We've met the Codelabs relating to writing Android Apps in Kotlin twice before, see Refactoring to Kotlin Codelab and Google Refactors Kotlin Courses.

Codelabs are intended for developers unfamiliar with the tools, and walk you through the process of building a small application. New in Learn is an extra way to use Codelabs via Pathways.

Pathways organize selected videos, articles, blog posts, and Codelabs into one sequential learning experience. The Pathways finish with an assessment, which you can pass to earn a badge - showing a keen understanding of what drives developers. An alternative route is via Topics, which cover collections of related codelabs, pathways, news, and videos.

The mention of badges is an indicator of how Google hopes to pull developers in to Learn. The portal includes a feature called Google Developer Profiles, where you can create your own profile and post details of the badges you earn. In a somewhat hopeful comment, the Learn team says:

"Here’s where the fun begins! You can show off all the new stuff you’ve learned on your Google Developer Profile."

and adds

"You can share all of your earned badges on social media, and make your other developer friends jealous!"

It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

More Information

Learn Portal

Related Articles

Google Refactors Kotlin Courses

Refactoring to Kotlin Codelab  

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