What I Used to Learn to Code

#codenewbie #beginners #career #firstyearincode

Note: This article contains some promotional links for different code learning resources.

Finding the Best Resources

The Basics

During the first months of my coding journey, I was always looking for new resources that could help me speed up my learning process. If you've just gotten into coding, chances are you either started coding with Codecademy or Free Code Camp, both excellent resources that I still visit from time to time.

If you follow the #100DaysOfCode hashtag, chances are you've seen people using Free Code Camp and getting their certificates. Free Code Camp is an excellent source for getting started because it covers so much from Web Development to Cryptography with a variety of languages, like HTML, CSS, Javascript and Python, but for some people, who need the whole audiovisual experience to stay engaged, other resources are required to complement FCC. In the case of Codecademy, you get a 7-day Free Trial, but you have to pay a monthly fee for Codecademy PRO, which can take you a bit further than FCC, because of its colorful interface, but its not as accessible and feels a bit lacking when the time comes to make projects with what you've learned.

The More Engaging Places to Learn

I only managed to try Treehouse's 7-day Free Trial but of all the places I've learned about Web Development, this was the one that I found the most engaging and visually compelling. It helps you give a very good structure to your coding journey. I didn't really learn using Treehouse because I wasn't able to afford it, but if I would have had the money, I'm sure that I would have sped up my learning.

The next resource I would like to recommend, also has its ups and downs, but it complies with my Audiovisual needs and has helped me stay engaged. PLUS it can be so much more affordable than any of the previous options. This has been one of my greatest aids in the last couple of months, and that would be Udemy. Udemy has as many courses as there are people teaching them. You can find courses on basically anything, even non-programming related topics. What I like the most about Udemy, is that, you can learn about very specific topics and generally, the lecturers go in depth and have you make projects that will help you improve your skills.

Some of the Udemy courses that have helped me really get a strong grip on my Web Developer skills are:

One final thing about Udemy, the courses can be pretty expensive but they have discounts all the time, I've been able to purchase most of my courses there for less than $20 bucks, and you will have content for months to come.

Honorable Mentions

I cannot conclude this article without mentioning two of the resources from which I have learned the most as well.
The first one is a series of courses by Michael Hartl called Learn Enough to be Dangerous. You can learn about Technical Sophistication which is probably one of the best skills in a programmers toolkit, about Text Editors, Git, The Command Line, HTML, CSS, JavaScript Ruby and Ruby on Rails. This series of tutorials used to be accesible for Free, but they've added some additional content and videos that make this an even better resource to have. So if you have the money, I would highly suggest this series of tutorials. Michael Hartl and co. literally teach you all of the basics that you don't get from other places in the most concise and simple way possible.

Finally, I would like to mention Coursera. If you're a student, and don't have much income, you can apply for Financial Aid and take a variety of courses that form part of a Specialization in a specific topic. In my case, I've taken courses on Web Development technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Bootstrap, like other Programming technologies and many more topics. If you aren't a student, you would have to pay monthly for each course, and in the end for a certificate that showcases your achievements.

Conclusion

I found it hard to get just the right resources that would help me be an effective learner. However, even though these methods worked for me, they might not work for you in the same way. So its up to each self-taught programmer to find the resources that are right for you.