Let us play a game. It is called 'My favourite learning resources'. Here is how it is played: We share learning resources we love as developers or has helped us learn a particular language or framework or technology. We are not doing this just for fun. We are doing this to help us find useful resources that can help us in our career as developers. At this point, I will share a personal experience.
Last year, when I was learning how to React (lol, I was learning React), I didn't know how useful and understandable their official documentation was. It was a developer advocate I met in a Facebook event that encouraged me to check it and it really went a long way in helping to learn React. Tada, the end. Lesson? Share your resources with people because it might go a long way toward helping them. Back to our game.
I know you are excited to share yours but I will go first. In no particular order, here are some of my favourite learning resources:
Disclaimer: This is in no way pitching one resource over another. Different resources work for different people. This is just to help people know available resources that have helped others and they can learn from.
This is where I started learning how to code. This is where I still go to learn new tools or technologies. It is one of the best learning resources for coding and the best part is that it is totally free. Recently, their curriculum was updated to include 6 certifications which include Responsive web design, data visualization, and API and microservices certification.
Why I love FreeCodeCamp is that I get to practice what I learn immediately and there are lots of projects you can work on to apply the knowledge you have gotten.
Udacity is well known for its Nanodegrees but do you know that there are lots of free courses you can take on Udacity as a developer. For example, this link provides a list of courses you can take to ace your skills as a web developer.
Udacity is also great because of its excellent teachers and practical examples. Also, there are practice projects you can do while you are learning.
Codecademy is another popular online resource you can take free coding lessons on. I think it's great for getting started as a beginner. When I was taking lessons in React, before I was introduced to reactjs.org, I found Codecademy very useful because I was able to practice what I learn immediately.
This is a catalogue of the courses they offer.
Mozilla Developers Network(MDN)
The MDN web docs is an excellent resource for web developers. It gives an in-depth explanation of almost all concepts in JavaScript(including ES6) CSS and HTML. It a well-trusted source of knowledge. It also has a collection of articles curated to help beginners get into web development. MDN is super helpful if you want to fully understand any topic and their browser compatibility.
Official Documentation
Shout out to all who write good documentation for their framework, library or tool. What's better than learning from the creators themselves. Previously, I used to think that official docs are not as helpful as tutorials written by others but that has changed. Many docs explain the concepts much more than any other tutorial will. Some even go as far as adding practical examples that you can follow along with. Some examples of good docs I have come across are Reactjs.org, Vuejs.org, Nextjs.org. There are a lot out there and you can learn a lot from them. When learning a new concept, be sure to check out the official docs for it, it might be all you need.
I can go on and on discussing great learning resources I know(like dev.to, I guess you already know this) but I want to hear from you. So what are your favourite learning resources?
Top comments (50)
Been at this from so many years and learned and dabbled in so many different languages and technologies, that now more specific "how-tos" work better for me than from the scatch resources.
Given that, here are some I have found it very useful.
StackOverflow
The best resource is the generosity of random strangers in places like stackoverflow.com, both who have posted the question as well as people who have answered. There is almost nothing you can't find a solution to.
httpsiseasy.com/
This is one of the best examples of how to build a learning resource for a particular practical goal in mind. I went from having a non-https website to an https in 10 mins.
From past experience, years back, when I was trying to learn python, the best resource I found was learnpythonthehardway.org/
I'm a newbie in web dev and in programming in general. I'm learning HTML/CSS.
Learning resources:
Tools:
Strategies:
I can't use frontloops.io, because that's $19 each practice set.
In no order:
Team Treehouse
Udemy
YouTube Channels
MDN
And I'm open to other resources that will make me a better developer. I will never claim to be an expert because the technological landscape is ever changing; so there is always something to learn.
That's what I love about this amazing and dynamic field.
Pavon
These are great resources Pavon. Thanks for sharing.
Great resources Sarah! 🙌
There are so many great resources I decided to list them on my website Frontend Mentor.
I listed all of the ones that have helped me or my students before that are either completely free or have decent free options.
A couple of favourites from the list are:
I'll be updating the whole site next week, including the resources page. So, while dev.to is currently not one of the resources on the live site (sorry everyone 😬), it will be added next week and would definitely be one of my favourite resources!
To learn a new language beyond the syntax: exercism.io
Free, Feedback from real people as you go, tons of examples and community support
I've never heard of Exercism.io before now. Thanks for sharing
I made a post on my blog with a big list of resources to learn from: "How to keep updated with the JavaScript ecosystem?"
I don't know why I've never knew that freeCodeCamp has such thorough curriculums. That's so great!
Lots of people have mentioned MDN, its good.
Hackerrank is one I used when I was teaching myself Python. Its great because it teaches you by giving you a conceptual snippet and then a problem to solve with an integrated code editor. The downside is the problems are written and created by the community so sometimes the quality is bad. Oh and they have regular competitions and offer services to connect you with companies looking to hire coders.
It's not web development, but when I was trying to learn Unity and its flavor of C#, following along with this channel's well-paced, friendly, fun videos made learning a breeze! Highly recommend his "Breakfast with Unity" series that has ~15 minute micro-projects where you can learn one specific skill at a time, and always make something awesome in the end.
PushyPixels on Youtube
Great, thanks for sharing this.
I'm biased, but I think these are all useful regardless of the language you want to ultimately use:
In no particular order:
Udemy
YouTube (Ben Awad, Derek Banas, Tim Corey, Hamza Mirzer, Traversy, LayoutLand)
Stack Overflow (For more opinionated question/answer topics)
w3schools.org
MDN
Books
GitHub Documentation
Jen Simmons on LayoutLand is an incredible resource for CSS tutorials, especially the new Grid level 1 system, still learning it:
youtube.com/watch?v=FEnRpy9Xfes&t=...
I initially learned React from Hamza Mirza on YouTube. Great channel. This is a link for one of the best react tutorials out there, in the opinion of someone who knew nothing of react (besides its utility as a SPA library) before watching this video:
youtube.com/watch?v=204C9yNeOYI