In her Starting Out In Tech series, WorkingNation Associate Producer & Project Manager Jaimie Stevens shares her insight on what it takes to succeed in learning computer programming skills.
There are a lot of blogs about tech — so many, in fact, that I’ve decided to break the blog recommendations down into increments. This article, in particular, is meant to help you shape your coding ability. What can you read that’s specifically meant to improve your coding skills as a beginner? Here are a couple of my favorites for you, for a variety of languages.
CodePen Blog
This is the first blog I used in my very first introduction to coding class with General Assembly. CodePen is an online community for testing and showcasing user-created HTML, CSS and JavaScript code snippets. It works by letting you create “pens,” which are sets of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It serves as an online code editor and an open-source learning environment. CodePen is one of the largest communities for web designers to show their coding skills.
NSHipster
The blog brings a sense of humor and personality to learning more about Objective-C, Swift, and Cocoa. They have a strong team of writers and have a couple of publications out if you like what you see online. They also put together their own “NSHipster quizzes” so you can challenge yourself if you want to.
Ray Wenderlich
This blog is a great place to improve your skills in iOS, MacOS, Unity, Swift, and Apple Game Frameworks. The blog has podcasts, as well as an extensive video tutorial collection for each of the aforementioned languages. A large team of authors, editors, subject matter experts, app reviewers, etc. power the site and their priority is to make it the most challenging topics easy for everyone to learn.
CSS-Tricks
When it was founded back in 2007, CSS-Tricks was primarily all about CSS. Since then, the blog has become all about web design and development. It provides you with video screencasts about HTML, Flexbox, building games with JavaScript and more. It contains a section with complete guides ranging from table elements to jQuery to CSS Gradients, as well as an almanac that lists CSS selectors and properties. There is also a forum for comments and questions and a page for job postings as well.
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The Crazy Programmer
This blog provides informative articles about programming and the tech scene in addition to programs, tutorials, and practice interview questions about C, C++, Java, Android, Python, .Net, PHP, Javascript, SQL and PL/SQL. It also gives recommendations on free eBooks to read for all of those languages.
The Daily WTF
I mentioned in one of my other articles that, even though it might seem like you are working independently as a coder, you need to be prepared to work with a team. You don’t want to be the weak team member. The Daily WTF is a user-submitted blog that highlights some of the worst coding practices that happen in a real working environment. While you’re working on your own as a beginner, this blog can give you a glimpse of what it’s like to work with bad coders, and teach you what not to do. Plus it’s funny.
My Programming Blog (MPB)
This blog provides articles on programming tricks, tools, and shortcuts. It has tutorials on C, Java, PHP, Python, and Ruby on Rails. The blog, created in 2011, is designed to help people navigate the world of programming and development tools. The creator of the blog started the site with some basic notes and questions that he gathered in class in college. Apparently, the posts came in high demand by the community, and soon his personal blog turned into the programming review, snippets, and tutorials provider that it is today.
David Walsh Blog
This blog mainly covers HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript as well as AJAX, jQuery, and Canvas. The posts are structured as tutorials with goals and examples, instead of theories and vague guidelines. It definitely will serve as a great place for you to learn. David Walsh posts frequently.
Coding Horror
People love this blog. Written by Jeff Atwood, who created Stack Overflow, I’ve primarily included this one because it’s an honest, funny blog that addresses the issues an ironies of software development, it’s ecosystem, and how it interacts (or doesn’t) with the business world. It’s been around since 2004. Jeff has a clever way of looking at the overall picture of coding and will provide you with a refreshing perspective of the tech world when you might be getting overwhelmed.
W3Schools
I used this blog in my Javascript class a lot, too. W3Schools is a free, exceptional resource for beginner tutorials. W3Schools includes tutorials and references on web development languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, and JQuery, covering most aspects of web programming. The site has been around since 1998 and focuses on keeping learning simple, as it should be. Tutorials start with the fundamentals and move all the way up to complete professional references.
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Coming Next Week: Jaimie helps break down the barriers that prevent newbies from starting down a new career path in computer programming.
