Having hashed together a couple of Websites in the past; yes including this one, last year I wanted more. I started to take a real interest in the ‘behind the scenes’ workings in order to improve – a lot! However, where on earth do you start? There seemed to be an overwhelming number of sites ‘claiming’ to have the ‘perfect path’ for just £299. If I wasn’t going to be cut out for this I really didn’t want to be spending any money. Even if it was I certainly wouldn’t be spending in the £100’s. Fortunately I seem to stumble upon some free amazing coding resources relatively early on, which I am still using! As they really are amazing!
Free Code Camp
The clue is in the name really isn’t it? Initially on the face of it the website seemed to be a bit old fashioned looking, however don’t be deceived! This website is amazing, written by selfless coders who are sharing their amazing talents by teaching literally the World! Whether you learn by reading, watching or practicing, this site has a mixture of all of them.
Simply create a free account and keep track of your progress working towards gaining certifications for your efforts! I would suggest working through the courses from the top to the bottom if you are a newbie like me. Learning the basics of HTML & CSS before moving on to Javascript(erghhhh) is definitely the way forward to avoid complete confusion! With endless courses, videos and exercises at your disposal this amazing free resource is (literally) priceless.
Amazing – Codecademy Coding Resource
With a huge variety of free learning material, Codecademy is a brilliant website which has (in my opinion) a really good layout for learning. Once you have chosen your course, the left panel is the learning content/instructions. The centre pane is where you type your code out following the instructions and the right is the output. If your answer is correct, great! If not, depending on the course you will see error reports to show you where you have gone wrong. But if all else fails then there are written solutions and ‘codealong’ videos you can follow so you can understand the logic.
I found this website to be so good I have upgraded to the Pro version . This gives you access to more quiz’s, projects to work through, articles and much more. Even though it was an expense over £100 I am really pleased I upgraded, I am learning so much daily! If you are out and about there is an app version with brilliant little quiz’s to keep up the learning!
The Odin Project
This is a free coding resource I stumbled upon early on too in my search. However already being stuck in to FreeCodeCamp and Codecademy I never really got started with this. I thought at the time three methods might be too much, even thought the course content and variety looked great.
W3Schools
I still flit in and out of this site as once again it has a good structure. After each page of content there is a little exercise to put it in to context. Give it a look, it may become your favourite?
I had no idea what an important part twitter would play in my coding journey. There truly is am amazing community out there who are so willing to share their knowledge with everyone. From cheatsheets on CSS to recommendations of learning resources and so much more I highly suggest getting stuck in! Who knew there were so many websites for example who give away background patterns you can load on your site. Or how many free icon sites there are? It would have taken me forever to find all these myself, but after following a handful of people I have ‘bookmarked’ so many wonderful sites! I cant wait to get stuck in to designing to use them!
Udemy
So, technically this is not an amazing free coding resource as they all come with a price tag. Sorry! However there is a ‘flash’ sale almost weekly where they are sold at £10, so never pay full price! From courses taking you from the very beginning (HTML etc), to expert level ones. There are also ‘codealongs’ where you put your study in to practise, there are almost too many to choose from! At the time of writing I believe I’ve around 10 courses I have either started or are in my ‘pending’ queue. How much have I spent you ask? Well, I found a neat way of getting them for free! Get a relative to ‘gift’ a couple to you for your birthday! So actually, this site can be a Free Amazing Coding Resource after all!
What’s my favourite then?
I don’t have a single top fave, but I do have a top 3 in no particular order. Udemy, Codecademy and FreeCodeCamp. Mixing up my learning has kept me interested; when one gets too heavy I switch. They usually then end up covering the same topic…… the output: I cement my learning! With a variety of different teaching methods I can choose what I’m in the mood for too.
Happy Learning! – Follow my coding journey, it all started here!
