Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
freeCodeCamp.org
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LLMs from Scratch – Practical Engineering from Base Model to PPO RLHF
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![How to friction-max your learning with software engineer Jessica Rose [Podcast #216]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pxMUG3gcoik/mqdefault.jpg "How to friction-max your learning with software engineer Jessica Rose [Podcast #216]
Today Quincy Larson interviews Jessica Rose. Shes a dev and teacher whos worked on open data projects at Mozilla and lots of open source projects.
We talk about:
- How the whole world is hard, and how embracing that difficulty rather than avoiding it can make you a better thinker
- The Bad Website club, a free online bootcamp where people learn front end development together that starts this April
- Why building silly little things is one of the best things you can do as a learner
Links from our discussion:
- Bad Website Club announcement: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/bad-website-club-bootcamp-based-on-freecodecamp-rwd-cert/
- Study Jess mentions about AI and worker productivity: https://www.raconteur.net/technology/ai-meaningful-work
Community news section:
1. freeCodeCamp just published a new Python course that will teach you how to program your own aerial drone. You dont need to own a drone. Youll use the PySimverse simulator to practice autonomous flight. First youll learn the basics of drone components, 3D movement, and common computer vision tasks. Then youll learn about navigation, image capture, hand gesture control, autonomous following, and more. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/master-ai-drone-programming/
2. freeCodeCamp also published a massive course that will teach you how to program NVIDIAs H100 GPUs using CUDA. Youll learn about CUTLASS optimizations, multi-GPU scaling, and the primitives developers use to train large models. (24 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/cuda-programming-for-nvidia-h100s
3. If youve ever wanted to build a video editor or live streaming tool that runs entirely in a browser, this handbook is worth bookmarking. Youll see how the WebCodecs API can give you low-level, hardware-accelerated control over video processing. Youll learn key concepts like video frames, codecs, containers, and muxing. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-webcodecs-handbook-native-video-processing-in-the-browser/
4. Kubernetes doesnt have a built-in user database. Instead it relies on a chain of authenticators. This course will teach you how x509 client certificates work, why theyre not ideal for human users in production, and how to instead deploy your own self-hosted browser-based OpenID Connect login. (29 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-authenticate-users-in-kubernetes-x509-certificates-oidc-and-cloud-identity/
5. The song of the week is 1983s Oblivious by Scottish New Wave band Aztec Camera. I love the songs Django Reinhart-style Flamenco guitars, mischevous bass line, and stereo percussion. Believe it or not, front man Roddy Frame was only 18 years old when he wrote the song, sang it, and played its iconic guitar solo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdVb4Iuq0e8
Chapters
- 00:00 Introduction
- 03:26 Interview Start: From Raw HTML to WebAssembly (Wasm)
- 05:01 Framework Fatigue: Cutting Through the Hype of Modern Tooling
- 06:54 The Monkey’s Paw of Modern Development Frameworks
- 08:51 Mozilla Common Voice: Consent and Ethics in AI Data
- 10:03 Grappling with Hard Problems: The Key to Real Learning
- 12:05 Jessica Rose’s Background: US to Japan and Tech Writing
- 15:21 Countering Scammy Bootcamps with Free Community Education
- 18:04 Embracing Messiness: The Genesis of Bad Website Club
- 20:40 How the Cohort Works: Shared Schedules and Live Streams
- 22:12 Why Asking a Human Matters More than Asking an LLM
- 25:28 Overcoming the Intimidation of Smartest in the Room Tech
- 28:47 Painting with Light: The Foundation of Silly Projects
- 31:02 From Student to Teacher: Meeting the Instructor Team
- 32:32 Responding to NVIDIAs Jensen Huang on Learning to Code
- 35:16 The Limit of LLMs: Why Creative Code Still Needs People
- 38:08 Neuroscience and Learning: The Value of Friction
- 39:46 Finding Luxury in The Hard Way Amidst Modern Pressures
- 43:03 Fighting Addictive Platforms with the Pursuit of Knowledge
- 45:15 Reclaiming the Web: Personal Expression and GeoCities Nostalgia
- 47:31 The Goblin Heart: Balancing Art with Financial Survival
- 49:54 Advice to a Younger Self and the Motivation of Spite
- 51:39 Kickoff Party Invitation and Wrap-Up")
![From Stealing Cars to Self-Taught Software Engineer with Dorian Develops [Podcast #147]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/q85XZnkaVpU/mqdefault.jpg "From Stealing Cars to Self-Taught Software Engineer with Dorian Develops [Podcast #147]
From Stealing Cars to Self-Taught Software Engineer with Dorian Develops [Podcast #147]")
