I’ve started working on Google Cloud’s Application development learning path, starting with the Google Cloud Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure course.

Going through the course on www.cloudskillsboost.google is a bit clunky – each lesson starts with the Slides document, followed by a series of videos presented by a Googler (Google employee). When you watch a video, you need to manually mark it as Completed. There are quizzes and labs in between videos. The quizzes are free, but the labs require purchase of credits, with each lab costing one or more credits (most seem to be around 5 credits).

Google currently is offering a free month of Google Cloud training, including access to the “complete catalog of over 700 hands-on labs, role-based courses, learning paths, skill badges and certification preparation resources.”

Or at least, they claim they’re offering a free month. I tried signing up Saturday afternoon, and the signup advised me to check my email for the link to get started. It’s been almost 48 hours, and I haven’t seen that email yet. If I don’t see it soon, I’m going to need to try signing up again.

The course progresses fairly smoothly at first, but the sequence of lessons has changed since the course was created in 2018. The “Containers in the Cloud” section starts, “We’ve already discussed Compute Engine…and App Engine…Now I’m going to introduce you to containers and Kubernetes Engine which is a hybrid which conceptually sits between the two and benefits from both.”

Except that the “Applications in the Cloud” lesson is the next lesson after “Containers in the Cloud”. Hmm. Should I follow the material in the order currently presented, or skip to “Applications in the Cloud” before “Containers in the Cloud”? I think I’ll do the latter, since the course Slides document and the videos haven’t been updated since 2018, at least so far. [edited to add:] “Containers in the Cloud” doesn’t appear to have been updated since 2018, but “Applications in the Cloud” has, so it looks like following the current sequence would be better.