Technology is redefining the way we do everything in our life and programming is at the heart of new age technology. Every tech enthusiast may or may not become a world changing programmer but one must try his hands on with programming to see what it has in store.
When it comes to learning programming, one can learn fundamentals of programming in a few hours by following good tutorials or spend days struggling with low quality material. There are many websites that offer free as well as paid tutorials and courses to learn basic concepts, intermediate level as well as advanced level programming concepts.
Some of these websites target students and beginner programmers, whereas others target more experienced programmers looking forward to acquiring specific skills, for example iOS apps development, Android development, website design and development, games development, big data, machine learning and so on.
These websites also offer language specific courses to learn programming languages including Python, Java, PHP, JavaScript, Swift, C, C++, C# and more. If you are an absolute beginner, Python is a great option to start learning the basic concepts of programming and the course titled “Complete Python Bootcamp: Go from Zero to Hero in Python” is one of the best courses out there to begin your programming career.
How to Learn to Program?
To make it easier for everyone to pick the right programming courses, we have listed down some of the best websites that offer variety of courses to learn to code online.
It is important that you list down your learning objectives before you move forward on the journey to learn to program, match your goals with various courses available on these websites, and then subscribe to the courses that fit best to your needs.
1. Udemy
With over 12 million students and 40,000 courses to choose from, Udemy is a big player in the online education market. All the courses are not related to programming, but there are hundreds to choose from to master basic skills of programming as well as to create enterprise grade mobile apps, web apps, games, web design, data science, machine learning, analytics and everything else technology.
Most of the courses on Udemy cover step by step instructions to make fully functional working app. It lists many general-purpose courses as well as language specific courses.
Talking a bit more about Udemy, it was founded back in 2010 by Eren Bali who learned math online and became international math Olympiad. The idea of learning online resulted in great results for Erin and that motivated him bring Udemy to life, which is growing leaps and bounds ever since its launch.
2. Coursera
Coursera is another popular website to learn programming online and hosts some of the best courses available in the market. Coursera mainly ties up with universities and lists many academic courses that are taught in regular classroom teaching in universities. A perfect place to get guidance around your computer science assignments, projects and to learn to code in general.
Some of the top ranked universities that Coursera has tied up with includes names like Penn, John Hopkins, Stanford, University of Michigan, Duke University, UC San Diego and many more.
Talking about computer science, you get courses in various categories including Software development, mobile and web development, algorithms, data science, machine learning, Computer security and networks, design and product development and many more.
Some of the popular courses at Courses are as listed below –
- Programming for Everybody: Getting Started with Python
- Programming in R and Data Analysis
- Introduction to Programming with MATLAB
Udemy vs Coursera
If you are trying to compare Udemy with Coursera, then, in short, Udemy’s courses are created mostly by business professionals and independent instructors while Coursera mostly ties up with Universities and professional teachers. For university students, specifically computer science stream, Coursera brings in more value with its focused approach and more relevant courses.
3. TeamTreehouse
Treehouse is not as huge as Udemy or Coursera but has a complete focus on courses related to web development, web design, mobile apps development as well as games development. Treehouse provides various learning roadmaps, following which a newbie can acquire development skills to be job ready within matter of days. We recommend joining Free Trial for sure to check out Treehouse courses.
Treehouse is headquartered in Florida and was founded by Ryan Carson and Alan Johnson back in 2011. The number of courses and learning roadmaps have grown ever since its launch and there are more than 180,000 students learning various courses at their own pace.
Treehouse also offers online guided tech degree programs to prepare students get jobs in the areas of Android development, full stack JavaScript development, iOS, Python, Java, front end development and others.
I have met many developers who have landed jobs after taking courses from Treehouse and claim it to be one of the best online learning websites for web development. Some of the key features they liked about Treehouse is the high-quality content, quality of videos and the audio, interactive online development environment to try your hands on, lot of quizzes as well as coding challenges to test your knowledge.
Some of the key courses offered by Treehouse are in HTML, JavaScript, CSS, jQuery, PHP, Ruby on Rails, WordPress, iOS and Android development.
You might also like – Programming Languages for Mobile Development.
4. Lynda.com (Now Linkedin Learning)
Lynda.com is one of the oldest online education companies and was founded back in 1995 by Lunda Weinman and Bruce Heavin. In mid-2015, Lynda became part of LinkedIn which now is part of Microsoft. In short, it is a big thing.
Linkedin learning’s customer base mainly includes large and mid-sized organizations instead of individual learners or students. The quality of courses on Lynda is highly professional are mostly video courses which are available in multiple languages including English, German, French and Spanish.
Linkedin (Formerly Lynda) is for profit organization and for that reason nothing comes for free expect the 10 days free trial, however, the subscription model of Lynda is interesting where subscriber gets unlimited access to all the existing courses available on Lynda. You also get access to any future courses and training material and get apps to watch courses on computer, tablets, or mobile devices.
5. Pluralsight
Pluralsight started back in 2004 as a classroom training school, which in 2008 branched out as an online learning academy. Pluralsight is a close competitor of Treehouse when it comes to learning web development, web design, 3D development, mobile apps development and games development.
One of the most liked features of Pluralsight is the learning-paths that help a beginner programmer decide which courses should be taken and in what order. d
Off late, Pluralsight has spread its wings wider and included many new courses and features for better learning experience. One of the key acquisitions of Pluralsight in the recent past being codeschool.com which is one of the top websites to learn coding. Yes, Codeschool.com is now a Pluralsight company. For sure, one of my recommended websites to learn to program.
6. freeCodeCamp
I love the concept of Fee code camp. It is an open source community that helps you learn coding for free and lets you participate in development of code/projects for not for profit organizations. An absolute win-win scenario where you first learn and then give back to the community that helped you to learn.
The curriculum on Free code camp is very focused and targets select areas of development, the key skills you can learn on FreeCodeCamp include HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Databases, Git and Github, Node.js, React.js, D3.js and other similar technologies.
The curriculum on Free Code camp is divided into four different certifications namely Front-End development, data visualization, backend development and then real-life project development for non-profit organizations.
The time required to complete the first three certifications is typically 400 hours each but you can choose to go on with your own pace. The last one, which is actual project development for non-profit organization typically takes 800 hours.
7. KhanAcademy
Like Free Code camp, Khan Academy also offers courses to learn programming for free. It is also a not for profit organization and was created back in 2006 by Salman Khan, it grew in popularity ever since its initial launch. Some of the courses (similar not exact) for which you would pay money on websites like Udemy, Lynda, Coursera or Pluralsight are available free of cost on Khan Academy.
When you land up on khan Academy website, it lists courses for young children around mathematics and science etc. Do not get carried away just by those, it has many dedicated courses on computer programming.
Khan Academy’s primary users are independent learners and beginners instead of enterprises. The courses are mostly basic and teach you the basic concepts, for more advanced and specific courses, you might want to check out Udemy, Coursera or TeamTreeHouse.
8. Codecademy
Codecademy is best suited for students and beginner programmers and focuses more on the core concepts of programming languages. It offers three subscription plans including Pro for individuals, Business for team learning and Enterprise plan for large organizations.
The business and enterprise plans offer tailored learning paths for teams, co-branded dedicated learning portal for large organizations, along with dedicated support.
Some of the popular learning tracks on Codecademy include Make a Website, make an interactive website, Learn Sass, deploy a website, Learn Angular, Learn React, Learn Git, Learn SQL, Learn Java, Learn Responsive Design, Learn Ruby, Learn Python, jQery, PHP and much more.
9. edX
edX was founded back in 2012 by MIT and Harvard University and lists high quality courses for online learning. edX as you can imagine partners with the top universities around the globe and offers professional courses in many streams including programming and computer science in general.
edX is open source and a non-profit learning hub which means that you can take all the courses available on edX and learn to program for free. The quality of the courses is good, being developed by top technologists, professors and trainers of some of the best universities.
If you are looking forward for a certificate to be added in your resume then you need to pay nominal fees. Learning, examination and everything else on edX costs nothing though.
10. Tutorialspoint
Tutorialspoint is the largest free tutorials library on the web and offers programming tutorials for almost every programming language including Python, Apex, Swift, Java, JavaScript, .Net, Lua and anything else that you can think of. TutorialsPoint was launched back in 2006 by Mr. Mohtashim and at that time it offered only a single tutorial to learn HTML, and grew to become most loved website by the end of 2016.
What I like about Tutorialspoint is its online Coding Ground that lets you program in 80 different programming languages, right there, in the browser. You can write the code, compile, execute, and share across the internet with others, without spending a penny.
Conclusion
Make hay while the sun shines, there was never a better time to learn programming than now. Over the last couple of years, the number of websites offering programming courses and tutorials has increased many fold, but all of them do not offer good quality material. Many of these websites even represent fake reviews and student enrolment counts against courses, this is what can mislead someone easily to join and pay for the courses.
Our team has analysed and personally sample checked the course materials and authenticity of the websites listed in this article. These websites include courses in many other areas as well but have particularly good courses on programming. We hope you liked the article and would find the courses that you are looking for.
Some of our top recommended websites include Udemy, Coursera, and FreeCodeCamp. Do check these out and let us know your programming journey, via comments. Cheers!
Further Reading – Popular Programming Languages.
