Places to Learn How to Code Online
Learning to code is not easy, but you no longer need to assemble a course from random search results. There are plenty of structured lessons, exercises, and project-based courses online.
The right place depends on how you learn. Interactive exercises are good for getting started, video courses can explain the bigger picture, and project-based lessons help the ideas stick.
Interactive lessons and projects
- Codecademy teaches programming through exercises that run in the browser.
- Khan Academy combines instructional videos with practice exercises and covers programming alongside many other subjects.
- Code.org focuses on making computer science education more widely available, particularly in schools.
- Dash teaches HTML, CSS, and JavaScript through small browser-based projects.
- Code Avengers offers guided programming courses with hands-on tasks.
- Treehouse combines course videos with a browser-based workspace, so you can build along with the lessons.
- BaseRails teaches Ruby on Rails and web scraping by recreating recognisable products and building data scrapers.
Courses and longer programmes
- Coursera provides online courses from universities and other organisations.
- edX offers university-backed courses in programming and many other subjects.
- Udacity has longer programmes aimed at skills such as web development, data analysis, and mobile development.
- Udemy is a broad course marketplace. Quality varies by instructor, so read the syllabus and reviews before buying a course.
- Platzi covers web and app development, design, online marketing, and server administration.
- Thinkful adds one-to-one mentorship to its career-focused programmes.
- One Month organises courses around learning a practical skill in a short, fixed period.
- Open2Study is an online course platform backed by Open Universities Australia.
- SlideRule combines skills courses with mentorship.
Libraries and course catalogues
- Code School teaches web technologies with video lessons, coding challenges, and screencasts.
- Learnable provides courses for developers and designers.
- Lynda covers technical, creative, and business skills.
- SitePoint Premium provides a library aimed at web developers and designers, including material from SitePoint, A Book Apart, and UX Mastery.
Do not spend too long choosing the perfect platform. Pick one course that matches what you want to build, finish it, and make something small without following the instructor line by line. That last part is usually where learning begins.