Blog Written by Shaik Mohammed Suhail - Marketing Intern

Introduction:

Most people want to learn to code but never start because of the number of resources available out there which intimidates new coders and you get lost in the "tutorial hell" where you watch tutorial after tutorial but don't make any progress. I have been there and I know how it feels when your efforts don’t fetch any results as we want them to but you know what? It has happened to every self-taught developer out there. Believe me, I was doing the same thing for god knows how many years. Basically starting a new course every six months and giving it up after a few weeks. What this never-ending tutorial hell thing taught me is that 

• We need to stick to a course
• We need to make projects while learning
• From where we learn doesn't really matter but we should know what we want to learn(I will get into this in a minute)

So I have basically told you the secrets of what every self-taught developer did to learn to code. They picked a course, they didn't move to another one until they completed it, they made a lot of projects because that's what you will be doing when you become a developer and they knew what they were learning.

The first two points speak for themselves and don't need any explanation but the last one "they knew what they were doing" is really really important

So what that means is there are tens of thousands of resources out there online. From expensive online boot camps to cheap Udemy courses to free YouTube videos, you should know what you want to learn for example web development, machine learning, mobile app development, etc.

What I'm trying to say is, you need to know what you want to learn and put all of your efforts into that one thing instead of learning everything. Learning one thing really well is better than learning a little bit of everything.

With that being said I am going to share three of the best resources I came across while dabbling in this tutorial hell and I can say "they helped me learn to code" without any hesitation and I saw myself improving while learning from these free resources.

YouTube:

Many of you might have taught free stuff is not good well I'm going to change it right now. You can learn almost anything in the world from YouTube, not just coding but literally anything (there are videos where they teach you how to drive a car but I wouldn't recommend them) from quantum mechanics to javascript, there are tutorials to everything on youtube and I feel like it's one of the most underrated resources when it has helped every developer. YouTube has a ton of great creators like Traversy Media, The Net Ninja, Hitesh Choudhary, Clever Programmer, and much more who make content related to coding. These are just some of the creators which I used to watch and I'm sure there are a ton of other great creators who post wonderful content. If you want to start from somewhere in your developer journey? Then youtube can be a good start. You will definitely dabble here and there a bit but you will learn a lot from that process and if you don't want that to happen, My next resource recommendation is for you!

FreeCodeCamp:

"Oh Boy! I wish I had known freecodecamp or FCC before" This is what I think when I hear something related to FCC because this website is so good! 

FreeCodeCamp is an NGO that teaches people how to code for free and also provides free certifications for various courses. You learn coding by building projects in FCC and it is the most effective way of learning how to code. You can learn almost everything related to coding and development on this website and did I tell you that they have a very big online community that helps each other out? Yup, FCC is the go-to website if you want to learn to code and it can take you from being a newbie to becoming an entry-level software developer if you put in the time and effort into learning it. FCC has helped over 40,000 people to learn to code and get jobs at major tech companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify, and many more. As I said earlier FCC is the resource I wish I knew earlier but if you want something which is as good as FCC or even better in some cases and you want to learn Web development? Well, the next resource is for you!

TheOdinProject:

Behold the great TheOdinProject or TOP, TOP is also an open-source project which can take you from being a newbie to an entry-level web developer if you put in the time and effort into learning it. TOP basically scraps the whole internet for the best resource to learn Web development and brings them all together and you will also find a part of FreeCodeCamp's curriculum in TOP. TOP has two Full-Stack Web development learning paths, One with Ruby on Rails and another one is the javaScript path. TOP doesn't start off easy like FCC, It makes you set up your own development environment and makes you install Ubuntu (Linux), and teaches you git version control from the start. For some people, this might look super intimidating but for me and many others, it is a blessing because you will be working like a developer from the beginning, and like FCC you will be building projects while learning. The best thing about TOP is that they will make you read all the boring documentation, you might be thinking why I am calling them boring and that is because they are boring but reading the documentation will save you a lot of time later in your career when you're wondering why this thing is not working. TOP will make you think like a real developer when you are learning and helps you become a tough one too. There won't be any spoon-feeding and they will let you figure stuff out which is what you will be doing when you become a developer which makes you resilient in the long run and you will become a good developer. I can talk about TOP all day because it is the resource that I am using right now and I can confidently say I have learned a lot compared to the other courses and resources I used before and that includes FCC too. TOP has a very active community on discord that helps each other and it is one of the best web development learning communities out there. If I can go back in time and tell my curious self something, Who is stuck in tutorial hell, It would be to start TheOdinProject right now.

So these are some of the best free resources out there online if you want to start learning to code. 

If you are a total newbie to this coding world, I would suggest you watch some youtube videos and tutorials to figure out what you want to learn or do and then proceed to either FreeCodeCamp or TheOdinProject and stick to them until you are confident enough to apply for jobs.

Conclusion:

At the end of the day, where you learn from doesn't matter. If you have the will to learn then you will figure out a way that works best for you.

Consistency is the key when you are learning something and your mistakes are your greatest teachers and in order to make mistakes, you need to get your hands dirty by building projects. 

Whatever you want to do you should just start it because I believe taking that first step and starting something is half work done because most people don't even do that. I will repeat this again. Consistency is the key and the difference between a winner and a loser is that the winner tried one more time than the loser.

You learn by doing things, We at icrewsystems offer a great internship program for aspiring web developers which will give you valuable industry experience or if you don’t want to learn to code but want a website for your business, We can also take care of that by making amazing modern websites as per your needs.

Have an idea? Let us make that a reality. Icrewsystems can make stunning modern websites for your needs. Contact us and we will see what amazing work we can do on your idea.