puckling:

arabellesicardi:

boomeyer:

I’ve said this to my non-techie friends countless times. It’s no secret that being able to code makes you a better job applicant, and a better entrepreneur. Hell, one techie taught a homeless man to code and now that man is making his first mobile application.

Learning to code elevates your professional life, and makes you more knowledgeable about the massive changes taking place in the technology sector that are poised to have an immense influence on human life.

(note: yes I realize that 3/5 of those links were Google projects)

But most folks are intimidated by coding. And it does seem intimidating at first. But peel away the obscurity and the difficulty, and you start to learn that coding, at least at its basic level, is a very manageable, learnable skill.

There are a lot of resources out there to teach you. I’ve found a couple to be particularly successful. Here’s my list of resources for learning to code, sorted by difficulty:

Novice

Never written a line of code before? No worries. Just visit one of these fine resources and follow their high-level tutorials. You won’t get into the nitty-gritty, but don’t worry about it for now:

Dash – by General Assembly

CodeAcademy

w3 Tutorials (start at HTML on the left sidebar and work your way down)

Intermediate

Now that you’ve gone through a handful of basic tutorials, it’s time to learn the fundamentals of actual, real-life coding problems. I’ve found these resources to be solid:

Khan Academy

CodeAcademy – Ruby, Python, PHP

Difficult

If you’re here, you’re capable of building things. You know the primitives. You know the logic control statements. You’re ready to start making real stuff take shape. Here are some different types of resources to turn you from someone who knows how to code, into a full-fledged programmer.

Programming problems

Sometimes, the challenges in programming aren’t how to make a language do a task, but just how to do the task in general. Like how to find an item in a very large, sorted list, without checking each element. Here are some resources for those types of problems

Talentbuddy

TopCoder

Web Applications

If you learned Python, Django is an amazing platform for creating quick-and-easy web applications. I’d highly suggest the tutorial – it’s one of the best I’ve ever used, and you have a web app up and running in less than an hour.

Django Tutorial

I’ve never used Rails, but it’s a very popular and powerful framework for creating web applications using Ruby. I’d suggest going through their guide to start getting down-and-dirty with Rails development.

Rails Guide

If you know PHP, there’s an ocean of good stuff out there for you to learn how to make a full-fledged web application. Frameworks do a lot of work for you, and provide quick and easy guides to get up and running. I’d suggest the following:

Cake PHP Book

Symfony 2 – Get Started

Yii PHP – The Comprehensive Guide

Conclusion

If there’s one point I wanted to get across, it’s that it is easier than ever to learn to code. There are resources on every corner of the internet for potential programmers, and the benefits of learning even just the basics are monumental.

If you know of any additional, great resources that aren’t listed here, please feel free to tweet them to me @boomeyer.

Best of luck!

let’s all learn how to code at the same time

Oooh. I’ve been meaning to get more technically proficient. Thanks for the links! 

euclase:

I had a disturbing exchange with a high school-aged person today that prompted this…

• Beer, wine, mead, and cider are fermented beverages.
• Mead is made from honey.
• Cider is made from apples.
• Beer is made from grains.

• Beer tastes like beer because they flavor it with hops.
• They used to flavor beer with dandelions.
• Ain’t that cute?

• All beer is either ale or lager.
• Ale is fermented at room temperature.
• Lager is brewed and store cold.
• Barleywine, bitter, porter, and stout are ales.
• Pilsner and bock are lagers.
• Most of the crap people drink in America is pale lager.
• Mosft of the crap people drink in Ireland is dry stout.

• Butterbeer isn’t real.
• (Except actually I think it is, and I heard it tastes like cream soda)
• Miruvor isn’t real, either, but it probably would taste like squash.
• Ent-draught isn’t real, either, but shit, it would be awesome if it were.

• Wine is made from fermented fruit juice, usually grapes.
• Red wine is made from red grapes.
• White wine is made from green grapes.
• The name of the grape is the name of the wine (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot are all varieties of grape)
• Unless you live in France.
• In which case, the name of the place supersedes the name of the grape.
• (for example: Burgundies are made in Burgundy, France, but Burgundy wine can be Pinot Noir or Chardonnay)
• Champagne is any sparkling white wine.
• However, Champagne can also be wine that comes from Champagne, France.
• Drink red wine with beef. Drink white wine with fish.
• Act like it tastes good. 
• Keep a Diet Coke in your bag for later.
• You’ll be fine.

• Brandy is distilled wine.
• Cognac is brandy aged in oak barrels.
• Don’t fuck around with the French about their cognac.

• Fortified wine is wine with added alcohol.
• Sherry is fortified white wine made in Spain.
• Port is fortified red wine made in Portugal.
• Vermouth is fortified white wine plus grape spirits.
• Sweet vermouth has added sugar.
• Dry vermouth has added spices like nutmeg.

• Liquors are distilled spirits that contain ethanol.
• Liqueurs are liquors that have sugar and flavors added.
• Liquors can be made from grains, fruits, or vegetables.

• Grain alcohol is liquor made from grains. Duh.
• Gin, Vodka, and Whisky are grain alcohols.
• Vodka is grain alcohol and water.
• Be careful with vodka. Homemade vodka is poisonous.
• Gin is (basically vodka) flavored with juniper berries.
• Absinthe is (basically gin) flavored with anise.
• Whisky is grain alcohol aged in wood barrels.
• Malt whisky is made from barley.
• Grain whisky is made from all the other grains.
• Scotch is whisky made in Scotland.
• Bourbon is Kentucky whisky mostly made from corn.
• Don’t fuck around with the Scottish.
• Don’t fuck around with people from Kentucky, either.

• Tequila is liquor made from the blue agave plant.
• Rum is liquor made from sugarcane.
• Schnapps is liquor made from fruit “must” (smashed fruit that still contains seeds and skins).
• American schnapps is grain alcohol mixed with fruit flavors and sugar syrup.
• Drink apple schnapps only while playing Tekken 2.

• Sake is rice wine that’s brewed like beer. Or something.

• Avoid these cocktails: Grog, Long Island Iced Tea, Manhattan, Dark and Stormy, Jack and Coke, Piña Colada, Scorpion. They contain huge amounts of alcohol and/or a huge number of calories. That Long Island Ice Tea is the worst motherfucker of the bunch. Just avoid them. Have a lemon drop martini instead.

• Don’t drink on an empty stomach or you’ll puke.
• Don’t drink too fast or you’ll puke.
• Avoid Long Island Iced Teas. Like I said.
• Don’t drink and drive because you might kill my Mom. You fuckers.
• If your friend has had too much to drink and needs to crash, make sure she’s lying on her side so she doesn’t choke on her own vomit. 
• Don’t leave a drunk friend alone.
• Passing out is a sign of being severely goddamn sick. If someone drinks and passes out? They are dying right now. Call 9-1-1. 
• If you are drunk, don’t drink coffee or caffeine to get sober. Sip cold water and nibble some saltine crackers.
• Don’t be a fucking idiot. Don’t smash my mailbox.
• Really, do you need to drink? 
• You probably don’t.
• But now you know some stuff. Maybe.