5 free resources to help your journey in software development
Tags: webdev, tutorial, career, codenewbie
Published: 2022-05-04 00:58:26

This article shares awesome tools to solidify your knowledge in coding. Each website covers multiple popular languages such as JavaScript, Python, Java, C++, etc. It can get overwhelming to find helpful resources, so I hope these ones guide you in the right direction.

Bonus part: these resources are beginner friendly and offer free content!

1. https://exercism.org
Exercism offers paths in 57 (!) languages, so you will most likely find the one that fits your journey. Each exercise is labeled based on their difficulty, ranging from “easy” to “hard”. Once you have solved the problem, you can submit it to get automated feedback through the website. If you have trouble solving it, you can take a look at the community solutions available to you. You can work on exercises locally and submit them via the command line interface or the Exercism editor. The best part about the platform is the ability to get a mentor to help you complete your path. Even better, you can become a mentor when you feel ready to reinforce what you’ve learned. The website is simple to use and the community is awesome.

2. https://www.30secondsofcode.org
30 seconds of code offers collections of snippets that include concepts to reinforce your programming knowledge. I used this resource to learn about React while working on my capstone project, more specifically React hooks. There are collections about nodeJS, Python, JavaScript, CSS, and many others. My personal favourite is “Tips & Tricks” consisting of ways to level up your coding skills, spanning many languages and technologies. This is also a great resource to learn git, but stay tuned for a future article about the most helpful git resources. 

3. https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn
FreeCodeCamp is a classic, but contains many hidden gems. I used the “Coding Interview Prep” component to practice basic algorithm knowledge using the “Project Euler” section. Being able to think logically is a big part of problem solving, arguably the most important skill in coding. Soon after, I picked a project to build under the “take home projects” section. I did this alongside the “algorithms” and “data structure” sections to solidify my knowledge. Simultaneously learning and practicing help keep the brain balanced. There are numerous sections to explore whether you want to learn front end or back end development. You can even earn certifications for completing certain components.

4. https://www.programiz.com
Programiz is a great beginner friendly resource to learn how to code. It offers a variety of courses about Python, C, C++, Java, SQL, JavaScript, etc. Each course comes with lessons divided into small modules, which makes learning straightforward on the platform. Personally, I used their “Data Structures and Algorithms” tutorial to practice core programming concepts. This is a great resource for my visual learners as each lesson contains illustrations about how the algorithm works.

5. https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/sites/learnathon/default.aspx?wt.mc_id=AID3042737_QSG_PD_SCL_567847&ocid=AID3042737_QSG_PD_SCL_567847&OCID=AID3042737_OLA_27377106_330517352_167961951#challenges
Last but not least, Explore Microsoft. This resource contains self-paced learning paths about Java, Python, C#, .NET, and of course JavaScript. Each path consists of guided modules and hands on learning to advance your skills. I used the “Build JavaScript applications with Node.js” path to build a website that makes calls to the Twitter API using a Node server. My favourite part about this resource is that they tell you exactly how long a course is going to take. For example, my specific path with JS and Node consisted of 6 modules that took 2h51min to complete. It’s important to note that each language is a collection of different paths. Meaning you can learn JavaScript with VueJS instead of with NodeJS for example. Take the time to explore which one fits your needs the most. 

That’s it, friends. Which free webdev resource helped your career the most? Have you ever used one from the list above? What was your experience like with it? Share with me when you get the chance!