Starting on your journey to learn how to code can feel overwhelming at times. Coding is a language of its own, and it may seem like the best or only way to learn it is to go to a university and spend a lot of money to have people teach you how. More and more so, though, people are teaching themselves how to code. Coding, from its inception, was a language used by creatives to build systems and software, and there’s no reason why you can’t be one of these people and learn simply by doing. In 2019, there are dozens of places for you to go to start to learn how to code with little to no investment.
Codecademy
Codecademy is one of the most highly visited websites for people who want to learn programming. Over 40 million users are signed up to the website, so you’re in good company. You can choose from a variety of courses that teach you everything, from basic HTML to JavaScript and CSS.
Coursera
Coursera has a great mix of both free and paid-for programs, meaning you can make a start in a few different languages and get a feel for what you’d like to dive deeper into. The website is backed by several major universities, and you even get a certificate when you finish their paid-for courses. This is great if you’re looking for jobs as a programmer and need a way to prove you have the skills necessary to do the job.
edX
EdX is interesting in that it’s completely not for profit organization and was set up over seven years ago by Harvard University. All the courses are free to try and generally discuss the most up to date information in the programming world.
Udemy
If you’ve searched for courses online before, there’s a good chance that you’ve come across Udemy. They have a massive range of courses in programming in every language you can imagine. Their USP is that anyone can upload a course to the platform, and then the people that take the course rate it. This means you can filter by reviews and find the best course in the area you’re looking to learn about. If you’re learning to code, you should also make sure to check out what the best laptop for programming is to make sure you have a machine that’s up to the job.
GitHub
GitHub is the place to go if you’re stuck on a problem or have an issue. If you’ve found a problem, most likely, someone else also encountered this problem, posted it to GitHub, and found a solution. If you find that there isn’t an answer to your question, post it up, and collaborate with over 30 million other developers to find the solution. Every programming language you can think of is covered, and the community is supportive of finding solutions.