Coding is probably one of the most exhaustive yet fulfilling professions nowadays. In a nutshell, coding is typing a series of instructions in a language the computer recognizes, for the computer system to follow and execute. To get the hang of it, you’ll have to practice coding regularly. Once the fundamentals are learned, only experience can enhance your knowledge. You may spend hundreds of hours correcting bugs, syntax errors, and compatibility issues, but having your code work seamlessly is worth all that time and effort. Here are some of the top free resources available online to help you become a coding whiz.
W3Schools
W3Schools is considered by many to be the best online resource available for learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. When you access the site, you will find all its resources and references tabulated for a more convenient navigation. Each lesson provides users with a comprehensive list of all the known syntaxes and elements of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It completely explains the different acceptable usages of the syntaxes and values of the lines of sample code.
Every lesson page also contains a table of syntaxes with the definition, usage, purpose, and different values and compatibility of each sub-element. It even allows users to test and tinker with excerpts of the code and observe the changes and effects in a small demo frame. When it comes to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which make up the core of web development, there is no online resource more highly recommended than W3Schools.
Codecademy and Kilobite
Java is the language used to build applications on your computer. Codecademy teaches programming languages such as Java in a series of structured courses and interactive classes, free of charge. Upon signing up, users will be allowed to select which among these three skill sets they would like to focus on developing: job skills, specific language, or something else. From there, users will get recommendations on how to get started.
Codecademy provides detailed lectures and exercises based on real websites and clients. Each lesson comes with an interactive slideshow equipped with the overview of the lesson. From there, you can try out different codes and tinker with the material while saving your progress. Compared to W3Schools, which is more of a dictionary or encyclopedia of the syntaxes of each language, Codeacademy is more like an academic textbook with clear, laid out lesson plans and curriculum. For those who wish to apply Java on mobile platforms such as Android and iOS, Kilobolt is a similar website to supplement the lessons from Codecademy.
Stack Overflow
Many veterans of the coding industry use Stack Overflow to find tailored solutions for specific issues. Stack Overflow is a community of millions of programmers who provide expert assistance to each other. Its website is a forum where programmers discuss solutions and fixes to stubborn bugs, issues in hardware and software compatibility, and many other arduous topics.
Chances are, whatever issues you are encountering right now with your code have been experienced already by another user. In an industry where the platform is always changing and being updated, there is hardly a shortage of issues worth talking about. Online lessons and simple exercises can only get you so far; even corporate software developers and programmers often enlist the help of other experts to come up with solutions, and there is no better place to go than Stack Overflow.
The only reliable way to master coding is practice. There are so many different platforms, operating systems, and languages that build up and run the digital world that is so integral to our daily lives. These platforms and languages are always changing, so keeping yourself up-to-date by consistently coding is the way to go.