WHERE TO LEARN TO CODE FOR FREE
Disclaimer: I am a non-programmer, haven’t studied IT. Although, I wanted to learn a programming language and below you will learn what I have learned during my research. This is my experience in a nutshell.
PART 2
As I mentioned in my previous post learning to code not only is a great career enhancement but is also exciting if you have a heart for it. As I also mentioned deciding which language to choose to learn is not easy. When I started I had no idea what front-end or back-end meant. In PART 1 I gave you a very basic introduction to choosing your language that I wish I had know before I started. It would have saved me so much time!!
Now, that you have the basics of the basics, it may be helpful for you to tap your coding fingers into free resources and try out some of the “for beginners” tutorials to see what a certain language does. There is a plethora of available courses on the Internet that you can try out and here is what I did myself:
1. CODECADEMY
My first ‘contact’ with code was with HTML in High-school. I did remember some of it and that I kind of liked making my own website back then. Of course it was a few pages with hyperlinks but it was exciting. So when I decided I wanted to learn to code I thought I’d do front-end (nope, I didn’t know that. I just knew those four magical letters H. T. M & L ) In the end I chose something else but I started with CODECADEMY to see if I really have the feel for this type of development. Codecademy offered a few courses including Java and Ruby then, so I tried those two as well (be careful when testing so it doesn’t confuse or discourage you).
Codecademy now offers a lot of different tools that can help you start.
2. DJANGO GIRLS
The director (thanks Steve :) ) of my department was learning R for his Phd and he encouraged me to have a look at Python. So I did. Some time later I stumbled upon DJANGO GIRLS and I took part in one of their workshops. And since then I knew I wanted to learn Python (Django is a framework used with Python) We went through the TUTORIAL that can be found HERE.
3. CODE CARROTS
Later I took part in the Django workshop organized by Geek Girls Carrots. You can find their events on their website.
4. lrnapp
Recently I have also found the lrnapp & I am playing with it on the bus when I travel. Unfortunately as of now it’s only available for iOS.
I decided to stick with Python. I can’t call myself a coder because in the end I didn’t have time to learn and practice every day. And it takes time & consistency to actually understand everything. But, I do know the basics. I know how more or less things work and learning those basics & terminology already gave me confidence working with the IT people & tech businesses.
Other free resources for beginners that I have found are:
1. Codeshool
2. TeachYourselftoCode — source of multiple resources
3. bento
6. Free Code Camp — I actually did many parts on JS (when I felt like maybe Python was not the right choice) but I got stuck on something too hard to solve & I decided it was not a good idea to “swing” . Anyways, in the meantime I found a nice complimentary (in my opinion) resource for JavaScript: w3schools . Check also if it may be useful for you when learning HTML, CSS, SQL PHP, BOOTSTRAP & JQUERY
7. The Hour of Code — it’s aimed at school kids but I did try it as well. Any practice is a good practice, right?
Hope this helps.
If you have any questions, let me know. If you think it might help someone change the course of their career, life or become a nice hobby, let them know by sharing.
GOOD LUCK!
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