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Friends In Your Head | Forums → Off Topic → Looking for a good source for programming/coding courses
Anybody have any recommendations? I know a lot of this stuff can be learned from scrounging tutorials, but I'm not a very structured person, so an actual course would be helpful for me.
I'm aware of places like Udemy and Codecademy. Anybody know if these are any good or have a different source?
Note: At this point, I'm interested in web development and learning useful code skills. I'm totally a beginner.
I've been learning a lot of this stuff lately through my forays into Arduino and scripting in After Effects, but neither of those is really a "web" thing so much as a bastardization of a web thing. So, probably not what you're lookin' for.
I know you just said that you're sort of opposed to tutorials, but http://code.tutsplus.com/ is a good place to start.
...Or so I hear. I can't code worth shit. I was pretty adept at using the Max Payne 2 Engine language, but apart from that; nada.
Lynda.com has a huge library of courses on programming and web development. You can get a free trial when you sign up. I can't remember how long it lasts.
For general programming, I'd recommend the "Foundations of Programming: Fundamentals" course; especially since the language used is Javascript, which is the most commonly used programming language in web development. It's taught by Simon Allardice, who is an absolute force when it comes to online teaching. I've personally learned a lot from his courses.
I'm not a web developer, but the "Web Design Fundamentals" course seems like a good place to start for a general overview of the subject.
Creds: Software Developer, B.S. in Computer Science
Last edited by Sam F (2015-08-31 21:49:20)
I think Rhett and Link usually have a Lynda referral code on Good Mythical Morning as well for a free month or something like that.
Not really a course, but a supremely handy resource to have is Project Euler.
This is a bunch of math problems, generally increasing in difficulty. Every problem can be solved by brute force, but the goal is to write a piece of code which gets the answer in under a minute. It's not a course, but I've found it really fucking helpful for
Thinking like a programmer
Thinking about data structures
Problem-solving
Making use of common coding structures (loops and conditionals and boolean logic etc)
Coming up with, and implementing efficient algorithms
etc
Can't recommend this enough!
Last edited by Herc (2015-08-31 23:47:04)
Project Euler seconded, it's a great problem-solving exercise and is requires only a basic knowledge of programming.
Coming up with, and implementing efficient algorithms
YOUR MOTHER COMES UP WITH, AND IMPLEMENTS EFFICIENT ALGORITHMS!
SNAP!! Teague burn
Can I get a "sudden Teague'd gif?"
1. Come up with a small project just for yourself
2. Build it
3. Analyze it
4. Realize it's crap and you could do better
5. Go back to no. 2
Seriously. Forget courses, forget all those 'learn to make an app in 30 steps' sites. Just pick a project, start coding and google everything until you run out of internet.
I like your spirit, and I'm basically doing just that with my music endeavors, but with computer stuff I personally need general knowledge first.
I've been having good luck with https://www.codecademy.com
+1
I like your spirit, and I'm basically doing just that with my music endeavors, but with computer stuff I personally need general knowledge first.
Did you start your music adventure by learning music theory? 
Touche, no. I started by learning some stuff about mixing. But as far as computers are concerned, I'm more interested in learning "computer theory" because it's a practical thing more than for-fun. I'm already a very basic, unofficial IT guy at work (mainly because I know more than the people I work with), but I could really use some general knowledge for everyday application. Which will eventually narrow to programming and coding.
Incidentally, tutsplus, which I linked to in my previous post, also have courses.
Writhyn wrote:I like your spirit, and I'm basically doing just that with my music endeavors, but with computer stuff I personally need general knowledge first.
Did you start your music adventure by learning music theory?
With software development, it's really best to have some training to help you get going. StackOverflow-ing your way through a project is not going to teach you all you need to know. It's one thing to be able to piece together a simple webpage, but when things start to get more complex, you need to be familiar with proper design principles or you'll be banging your head as you copy, paste, and reorganize ad nauseum. It's also important to have some understanding of what's going on under the hood, even though web development is such a high-level abstraction.
Googling around will teach you how to write a "for" loop, but not how to approach a complicated project.
For the record, use StackOverflow on an almost daily basis.
There are some good resources already mentioned. The difficulty with tutorials for these kinds of things is that it's sometimes tricky to convey the purpose behind some practice or design principle in writing without any live feedback between the reader/writer.
It's a little like the Matrix. You can't always just be told what it is. You have to be shown.
In my experience the points at which I've learned the most have come when I've been working with like-minded people that I can bounce thoughts and ideas off of and more experienced engineers that you can learn from regularly. Being able to ask lots of questions is important - you can watch an entire tutorial series but if there's something you don't get early on then it's going to be a struggle.
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