M.academy – Straightforward Path to Magento 2 Development

Self-education is a crucial aspect of everyone’s growth. While some people can effortlessly rely on their cognitive abilities while mastering any topic alone, the others need a system of controls, mentors, and peers to wipe the existing boundaries out, getting the desired skills. Luckily, the Internet is full of all possible educational programs and courses. Nowadays, you can acquire literally any new knowledge without any necessity to leave your apartment. And Magento 2 is not an exception. Today, we review one of the very well-known platforms developed to help you explore the most powerful e-commerce solution. Meet M.academy – the cure for the pain you’ve experienced trying to maintain your relations with Magento.

M.academy Brief Overview

Studying any difficult topic is a time-consuming affair. However, in the long term, you can dramatically improve yourself as a specialist. M.academy lets you simplify the elaborate routine by breaking down huge and complicated topics into small and easy to understand lessons. The specialists behind the platform apply this approach to the entire platform, delivering the coverage of all Magento 2-related areas: PHP, JS, SQL, XML, OOP, CLI, to name a few. 

M.academy offers several courses aimed at a different target audience. If you are new to the e-commerce platform, you can leverage the Magento 2 Coding Kickstart course. It also suits people who experience any difficulties learning it or those specialists who need to refine their knowledge about the system. 

If you are already familiar with Magento 2 but have some gaps in your knowledge of the platform’s JS layer, pay attention to the RequireJS & JavaScript Components course. It starts a four-piece series dedicated to the particular aspects of JavaScript in Magento 2. 

At the same time, some free lessons and snippets are under your disposal. 

M.academy core features

• Visual Learning. Since the epoch of radio is now gone, most people rely on visual reception while consuming new knowledge. The popularity of YouTube and Instagram is the direct evidence of this trend. M.academy follows this demand, providing the ability to watch, rewind, and playback as often as you need. The platform offers on-demand screencasts that are easy to use and efficient from the perspective of learning.
• Division of Complexity. As we’ve just mentioned, M.academy divides complicated topics into small and easy to learn lessons. Therefore, the platform’s courses suit well both experienced developers and absolute beginners. 
• Affordability. Price tags associated with M.academy are very budget-friendly. The platform offers several pricing plans suitable for different business models. You won’t need to spend thousands of bucks per year.
• Certified Specialists. With over 20 years of web development experience, Mark Shust knows Magento 2 from edge to edge. Being M.academy’s primary teacher, he holds multiple Magento 1 & 2 certifications and understands what platform’s aspects to highlight first.

About Mark

Mark is one of the top specialists in the Magento ecosystem. He started his journey within the platform in the early days of Magento 0.8, developing a massive interest in the Zend and Magento Frameworks on the background of e-commerce and PHP experience that already lasts for 20+ years. 

Mark used to work within many organizations pulling through a thorny path from junior developer to chief solution architect. He participated in numerous conferences, such as Magento Imagine and Meet Magento New York, as a speaker. His LAMP stack programming expertise made him a Zend Certified Engineer and Adobe Certified Expert. With the passion for open-source software, Mark has maintained one of the most popular development environments for Magento – docker-magento.

Magento 2 Coding Kickstart

Now, let’s highlight several more aspects of each course represented on M.academy. The Coding Kickstart course mentioned above will help you learn and reference all of the core Magento 2 programming basics, concepts, and patterns. It is up to date with the latest Magento version. If you have any troubles while trying to master this unbelievable foundation aimed at highly scalable advanced e-commerce websites, you’ve come to the right place. Be ready to deal with one of the most complex and intricate mechanisms developed to produce online storefronts. The Magento 2 Coding Kickstart course by M.academy will help you dot the i’s and cross the t’s within a focused, simplified curriculum.

As you might have already understood, the core goal of this course is to provide Magento 2 programming basics necessary to start your first e-commerce project on the platform. The course is suitable even if you have no prior experience. 

However, Coding Kickstart is not a completely all-encompassing course. It means that you will need to sign up for other programs on M.academy or elsewhere, continuing your education. The course covers all of the concepts and patterns following Magento’s recommended best practices. Its first aim is to provide you with a solid foundation. Next, you will have to transform into a great Magento developer by gaining new knowledge and experience beyond M.academy.

As a beginner, you get a chance to become skilled in Magento 2 programming very quickly. The platform offers a screencast course with each lesson equipped with full-text translation and full inline source code presented in the material. You learn visually by watching the detailed instructor program. This approach helps you learn faster than when you work with the documentation only. However, it doesn’t mean that you can avoid the latter.

With M.academy, you can watch the lessons and reference the source code on GitHub after that. It provides a better understanding of what’s going on under the hood of Magento 2 and enables you to learn how to develop features for your upcoming projects.

The course lets you stay focused on the core “must know” concepts of the platform with each lesson presented in a student-friendly way. The screencasts are purposely short and concise. Their format engages you throughout the entire course. Consequently, you actually learn what you are watching. By keeping everything simple, M.academy doesn’t let you get lost trying to understand multiple new concepts and ideas. Each topic is divided into the smallest possible sections to teach only one construct at a time. For instance, Coding Kickstart is divided into the following parts, each of which includes several screencasts:

• Environment Setup;
• Module Basics;
• Routing;
• Views;
• Design Patterns;
• Database.

RequireJS & JavaScript Components

If you are a more experienced developer, pay heed to the RequireJS & JavaScript Components course of M.academy. The platform lets you discover the fundamentals of JavaScript in Magento 2. Since the JavaScript layer is one of the trickiest parts of Magento 2, Mark drives students’ attention to the fundamentals of JavaScript in Magento, starting with the basics. He precisely explains such topics as:

• Creating a JavaScript component in Magento 2.
• Defining a server fallback if a CDN fails.
• The difference between paths, maps, and mixins.

Walk through all of these and other concepts to clear the air and demystify the image behind them. By completing the course, you’ll get a solid foundation of the JS fundamentals in Magento 2.

Also, note that all skill levels are welcome: beginner, intermediate, and advanced programmers can leverage the course. If you are new to JavaScript in Magento 2, you will explore lots of mysteries. At the same time, more advanced developers will pick up edge tricks. Both groups of students will have a complete collection to reference when complete.

The course is based on the same principle as the one we’ve already described: you learn faster by watching the instructor program. This approach is considered more efficient than reading the documentation only.

Full source code with snippets is under your disposal. As a result, you can quickly master new topics with blocks of code and inline comments. The platform lets you view, copy, paste, and reference every lesson in the course, exploring everything right on the code side.

Bear in mind that the RequireJS series is only a part of the more extensive course called Demystifying JavaScript. Due to the complexity, it is divided into multiple small parts with short, concise, and easy to follow video materials. M.academy lets you focus on one subject at a time so that you don’t get lost and study without getting overwhelmed.

Upon completion of both courses, you receive a dedicated certificate. It contains your name and is signed by the course instructor. What is it necessary for you will ask? Consider it a demonstration of your skills to a potential employer. However, the main prize is your new knowledge and experience.

Free Content

In addition to paid courses, M.academy offers a collection of free content through Library and Snippets. 

M.academy Library

Use lessons, courses, and other resources that are available out of charge through the Library section of M.academy. Thus, you can enrol as a platform’s student for free. You only need to pass the registration. In addition to access to free materials, you can track course progress and leave comments on lessons. Some of the free topics include:

• Setup a Magento 2 Development Environment with Docker;
• Magento 2 Unit Testing with PHPUnit;
• SSH for Remote Server Authentication;

M.academy Snippets

When it comes to the Snippets section, it helps you master various topics associated with Magento 2 through blocks of code and inline comments. For instance, the corresponding page unveils an example of a Magento 2 snippet of a module skeleton.

Pricing

M.academy offers three pricing plans: Individual, University, and Agency. 

The first one costs $299 for Coding Kickstart and $149 for RequireJS and JS Components. It is a one-time payment that provides you with lifetime access to the course with no monthly fees and free updates for life. You can also leverage the full source code and join the corresponding Slack group. The Individual plan offers a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

The University plan costs $49 per month per active student. This plan opens the door to all premium content and courses as well as new materials that regularly appear on M.academy. An unlimited pass to Snippets is another essential feature introduced in the plan. You can also leverage premium content and all-access, making your team training as simple as possible.

The Agency plan starts at $897 for Coding Kickstart and $297 for RequireJS and JS Components. It is a one-time payment for five students. Thus, you pay about $180/$60 per person depending on the selected course – a more budget-friendly option than booking it individually. The more people are in the agency, the less the price per individual is:

• $897/$579 for 10 students;
• $1739/$819 for 15 students;
• $2459/$1059 for 20 students.

Final Words

Acquiring new knowledge and skills is relatively easy nowadays, as we’ve just seen. Neither e-commerce, in general, nor Magento 2, in particular, is an exception. You just need to discover courses that suit your needs. M.academy offers a perfect opportunity to begin your trip within the ecosystem and exceed the existing boundaries at a relatively low price. For further information, follow this link:

M.academy Magento 2 Courses