My Favorite Websites to Learn Programming

Over the past 8 weeks, I’ve spent my days (& nights) immersed in a Full Stack Software Engineering course. During my time learning these concepts outside of my 8+ hrs a day at Boca Code (shameless plug), I’ve stumbled across a few websites that have been very useful in helping me figure out a lot of the different pieces, and I thought I’d share some of my favorite resources with those of you who might be starting in my position in the future (don’t worry, WAGMI).

1. Codecademy.com

Codecademy’s User Interface is set up very nicely, I love how it teaches on the left, you work on the middle, and see your output on the right. Easy peasy.

Codecademy is an interactive web platform that has free coding lessons across multiple different languages and frameworks. This was my first resource that I latched onto when I began with the fundamentals, and what I liked most about this site was the way its UI would teach a lesson with a reactive display to whatever was coded into the main window by the user. This helps if you’re a visual learner, like myself, and I was able to understand the fundamentals of a lot of JavaScript through their guided lessons. I recommend checking this resource out if you’re brand new to a concept and you simply want a broad understanding of the fundamental concepts surrounding a language or framework. Also, their first tier is free, the pro monthly is $40/month, and the pro annual is $20/month (you can usually find deals, but in my opinion, the free version is just fine).

2. Edabit.com

Edabit is the one-stop shop for coding challenges if you’re just starting out in CS.

One of my favorite things to do when I first started to learn how to code and get over that initial learning gap was completing coding challenges. Coding challenges are a great way to exercise that problem solving muscle in the brain, asking you to come up with solutions that have multiple ways of actually solving it (and unfortunately a million ways to not solve it). The main problem with coding challenges is, when you’re just starting out, you can’t just jump into Leetcode and start knocking down problems, there’s a learning curve — that’s where Edabit comes in. Edabit has over 10,000 interactive coding challenges with difficulty ranging from “Very Easy” to “Very Hard”, and even though the very easy may seem hard to some at first, there’s a steady increase in difficulty which is great for beginners. I highly recommend this website if you want to gain skill in coding challenges.

3. Freecodecamp.org

Freecodecamp.org is a fantastic resource for learning the fundamentals of a number of CS languages.

I have to say, if I would have known about freecodecamp when I knew about codecademy, I probably would have been splitting my time 50/50 between these two sites. I love freecodecamp and the way they teach their lessons. Although I’ve only used it to brush up on what I’ve already known, it’s UI is very user-friendly and it helps lay down fundamental concepts in a digestable way. If you are starting out at a coding bootcamp and you want a place to start to learn JavaScript, I highly recommend starting on the Basic JavaScript course and just working your way down the lessons.

4. Theodinproject.com

The Odin Project really leans towards project-based learning, which is great for applying the skills you’ve learned.

One that I must add to this list is The Odin Project, which the best classmate in our cohort raves on (got hired 7 weeks into the class, so it must do something right). The Odin Project is a great way to apply tools that you’re learning and make them applicable in actual projects. There’s lots of different courses with projects and steps to follow, I personally haven’t spent too much time with this platform, but I love to spend time learning React on here.

5. W3Schools.com

W3 Schools has some of the best documentation-based tutorials on the internet for CS. Highly, highly recommend.

W3 Schools is an educational website that also contains interactive lessons for all of the major languages and frameworks, with great documentation for teaching a wide variety of concepts. They have places where you can write your own code while the documents are presented, and they’re also great with breaking down each idea piece-by-piece to the smallest concepts. I’ve used this site countless times to brush up on something that I might not understand all the way, and whether you use this platform as your main place to learn or not, chances are, you’ll be stopping through this site many times to learn or re-learn something, big or small.

Let me know in the comments some of your favorite resources to learn how to become a Software Engineer!