So one of the greatest things about programming is that you can create so many things that solves so many issues in your life and others. But the worst thing about programming is the learning curve and the tedious hours you have to go through to learn the programming language that makes you hate yourself for even thinking about putting yourself in this ridiculous situation in the first place. But you love the end result, hence like the common masochist you continue even when it hurts.
So you want to be a programmer, but you don’t know how to start and since your a millennial or gen x’er in the existing in the 20’s of the 21 century, you know YouTube and Google are your best-friends, but you also realize that just sitting down watching a video for 4 hours would really suck. Luckily there are other options on the internet that helps curb this absurdly boring method.
before you do anything though, the best way to start is to get a grasp on symbolic logic. Understanding symbolic logic and it’s subsets, propositional logic. this is mostly the process of turning arguments into symbols and analyzing the truth value and false value of them by doing proofs and using valid argument forms. This isn’t a mandatory need, but this will help you understand logic statements and get your mind rolling down the path of understanding logic in computer science, which programming is based on. You can likely find this around google somewhere or you can go here (http://intrologic.stanford.edu/public/index.php) and (http://www.philosophy-index.com/logic/forms/). Now here are the top 5 places you can go to that will help you learn different types of programming languages.
Codecademy
Price: 19.99/month
Description: Codecademy is free if you want to learn just the basics of the top languages of this age. They have courses for C++, R, Ruby, Java, Javascript, Python, Swift, and more. They claim that they are committed to building the best learning experience inside and out, making Codecademy the best place for our team to learn, teach, and create the online learning experience of the future.
My opinion: I think that Codecademy is worth the money. But if you are like me and like things that are free, then you probably don’t want to spend 20 dollars a month on something you can watch on YouTube and download a text editor so you can do same exercises yourself. I don’t like paying for anything because I’m cheap.
Udemy
Price: depends on the course you buy and language
Description: So Udemy is a website that has a myriad of different courses that provide in depth information for anything specific. They have drawing courses, marketing courses, data science, anything you can think of. So we know that they have courses for programming too like Python and Java as well as teaching concepts like Object Oriented Programming, Functional programming, building GUI’s and more.
My opinion: I think this is better than Codecademy because you can find courses for free or cheaper than 20 dollars. They also always have sales that you can take advantage of. The only drawback with this option is that you have to really apply yourself in order to make sure you get through all the lessons because they are really boring depending on what you buy and there’s no real flexibility in terms of what is being given to you as a lesson. The lessons can make a lot of assumptions about what their viewers already know and what they do not. And that is pretty ridiculous, but it’s the beast you have to tangle with.
W3schools.com
Price: Free
Description: This is a website that concentrates mostly on web development and gives users access to the knowledge of languages that are associated with web development. They teach you the basics when it comes to markup languages like HTML then move on to bigger and more popular languages like Java, Python, C++, C# and more in relation to web development. he site derives its name from the World Wide Web (W3), but is not affiliated with the W3C. W3Schools was originally created in 1998 by Refsnes Data, a Norwegian software development and consulting company.
My Opinion: Definitely better then the ones previously mention mainly because of the aspect that it’s FREE. That word is so sacred when your a broke millennial so always seek it out and make sure it becomes your idol, your God, your lover, your…well…you get the point. The only drawback is that it is heavily focused on only web development so you might learn the language, but will be limited to only knowing how to create web apps and not more things outside of the internet. This will force you to seek out other options. Bummer
Sololearn
Price: Free
Description: This organization created a platform that puts learning and social networking in the same space. They claim “Learning has never been this social and accessible for so many! Bit-sized lessons and fun practice sessions grab your attention and keep you focused, for guaranteed best results!” They have an app that can be used on both your android and Apple phone as well as the opportunity to learn on the browser as well. They also make the lessons game like so that the user feels like they are achieving something each time they go through the lessons. They would receives badges, points, and achievements that does the job of showing the user their own progress.
My Opinion: Sololearn is something I personally use to get ahead on material and learn the basics of what I need to know. It’s useful when you are trying to kill time on the train, which helps you ignore the strange smells that always linger in the train station. Each language has at least more than 50 lessons on it.
FreeCodeCamp
Price: Free
Description: Best APP OUT THERE!!whoops, this is supposed to be the objective section, sorry. This Website is a One-stop shop for all your Software development needs. It provides the user with understanding Javascript through and through and does this one thing very well. Now it doesn’t have tutorials for other languages out right, but through their forums and articles they link to good free resources and videos that can help you learn these things.
My Opinion: I believe that if you want to learn the basic and intermediate level information for data structures and algorithms in JavaScript, this is the best place to start. Learning data structures and algorithms in one language doesn’t limit you either because it helps you apply the concepts of these things to other language that you will later learn. They have thousands of hours of lessons for JavaScript and links to learn other languages through their search bar. Some might say the other options are better than this one because the lessons are right there for you on the platform, but in my opinion I feel like a lot of the other ones only have their users dip their toes in each of the languages and don’t do enough to apply the language to solving common computer science problems. This is different with free code camp; it gives you the instruction learning the coding language and applies the language to learning data structures, algorithms and more which helps the user understand the science of programming rather than just being able to build cool stuff.
Well that my “informed” opinions in a nutshell. I hope you found this hopeful. This blog is guaranteed to change your life for the better or worse (the worse I’m sure 😈). Have a wonderful day!