Learning coding - good websites?

Under_Graduate

Hi, going for the Software Development course next year, but want to have at least some idea of what I'm doing before I begin.

I've been to codeacademy.com, which has a great intro course but there's no intermediate or advanced levels.

Any websites that are known to be good in that sense?

I've started on Java, and from what I gather, that's a good learners language.

I also need to familiarize myself with the specifics of

Object Oriented Software Development;
Database Development;
Computer Architecture,
Operating Systems & Communications;
Software Engineering and Project Management; and
Internet Programming.
Cloud computing

so any links to good info websites would be appreciated also.

SimonTemplar

They are all very high level topics. Udemy, Udacity, Pluralsight are all well known providers of high quality resources (probably a few more too that I can't think of). Pluralsight is heavily focused on Microsoft tech but some of their topics are language agnostic.

Also, Youtube can be a good source if you find the right video or playlist. Dozens of videos explaining OOP for example. The quality varies wildly though, although you probably get a sense of the video within a few moments. This guy is pretty good...https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwRXb5dUK4cvsHbx-rGzSgw

Specifically for Java, as a beginners course (which seems to include some OOP theory too), take a look at https://www.caveofprogramming.com/library/index.html#java-video. I did his extensive Java Spring course last year and was impressed.

threein99

Under_Graduate wrote: »

Hi, going for the Software Development course next year, but want to have at least some idea of what I'm doing before I begin.

I've been to codeacademy.com, which has a great intro course but there's no intermediate or advanced levels.

Any websites that are known to be good in that sense?

I've started on Java, and from what I gather, that's a good learners language.

I also need to familiarize myself with the specifics of

Object Oriented Software Development;
Database Development;
Computer Architecture,
Operating Systems & Communications;
Software Engineering and Project Management; and
Internet Programming.
Cloud computing

so any links to good info websites would be appreciated also.

The New Boston tutorials are really good too

Hollister11

https://www.thenewboston.com

magicmoves

https://www.thenewboston.com/

Under_Graduate

magicmoves wrote: »

https://www.thenewboston.com/

I checked these out, they seem very good.

People seem to be able to post interactively with questions from the website though.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do that cause there doesn't seem to be a link.


Also, I've been practising code through codeacademy.com which has a built in console window.

To practice code from thenewboston.com, do you guys just download the java compiler or what?
Any specific place I can download that from??

ScottStorm

Under_Graduate wrote: »

I checked these out, they seem very good.

People seem to be able to post interactively with questions from the website though.
I'm just trying to figure out how to do that cause there doesn't seem to be a link.


Also, I've been practising code through codeacademy.com which has a built in console window.

To practice code from thenewboston.com, do you guys just download the java compiler or what?
Any specific place I can download that from??

Take a look at teamtreehouse too (not looked at their java stuff yet as still working my way yhrough their php courses.), download the jdk from oracle, follow the set up instructions. Then download an editor like notepad++ or sublime, and then follow the tutorials. I would stay clear of eclipse or netbeans for the moment.

Senna

ScottStorm wrote: »

I would stay clear of eclipse or netbeans for the moment.

That is great advice, I tried to start learning on my own before taking a course and the compilers gave me more problems than anything else.
Once I started my course i had help if I ran into such a problem, but environment problems can really put a beginner off programming from day one.

pog it

ScottStorm wrote: »

Take a look at teamtreehouse too (not looked at their java stuff yet as still working my way yhrough their php courses.), download the jdk from oracle, follow the set up instructions. Then download an editor like notepad++ or sublime, and then follow the tutorials. I would stay clear of eclipse or netbeans for the moment.

Really depends on the course - I'd personally recommend starting with their free trial and see how you get on.
I prefer to learn using books rather than by video, will depend on your learning style and there are tons of good online courses, just search per topic.

counterpointaud

Pluralsight, Udemy, and Coursera all worth checking out. The quality level of the Pluralsight courses is consistently higher than the rest IMO.

a fat guy

I've found Lynda.com to be really good for video tutorials.

It's 15 bob a month though.

amen

OP, its great that you want to get a head start on your course but make sure you continue to study for this years exams and pass.

You will have plenty of time during the summer to review the links provided.

Also when in college make sure you attend the lectures on the course you may have reviewed online. Don't think that just because you have read the material online that you can skip the lectures.

corman007

udacity is probably better than coursera as it has more cs related courses. Would recommend following the following courses on youtube from UC Berkeley
CS61A, CS61B, CS169 & CS186
There are also some good ones from Stanford. The lecturers are second to one and provide a great insight into what they're talking about.

Under_Graduate

ScottStorm wrote: »

Take a look at teamtreehouse too (not looked at their java stuff yet as still working my way yhrough their php courses.), download the jdk from oracle, follow the set up instructions. Then download an editor like notepad++ or sublime, and then follow the tutorials. I would stay clear of eclipse or netbeans for the moment.

Can I get the editor of oracle.com also, or is there any specific place I should look?

ScottStorm

Under_Graduate wrote: »

Can I get the editor of oracle.com also, or is there any specific place I should look?

www.notepad-plus-plus.org

www.sublimetext.com

manjosh

codeacademy.com. Beginner friendly is their selling point.

Under_Graduate

manjosh wrote: »

codeacademy.com. Beginner friendly is their selling point.

I agree, and I found it excellent for a beginner such as myself.

And fortunately, there's no selling - all free.

Digital Society

Go to everyones favourite torrent site and grab a few Lynda.com Video Collections.

Lynda.com - Foundations of Programming: Object-Oriented Design
Lynda.com - Java Advanced Training
Lynda.com - Java Essential Training (2011)
Lynda - Building a Website with Node.js and Express.js with Ray
Tutsplus.com - Learning MongoDB [2013]

https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science-harvardx-cs50x

By Far the most important tip i can give you is actually do some projects of your own. Build a website using Node.JS and Express, Create an Android App and some Java Apps. Make sure you use Databases with everything. SQL and NOSQL.

Dont just follow tiny tutorials and then move onto the next. Put it all together and build something big that one day you could show to an employer or use in a College Project.

Write to your course leader and ask for a list of languages used throughout the course and look into them.

Under_Graduate

Java programming and .NET programming were the languages mentioned on the course syllabus.

I'm familiarizing myself with Java through codeacademy.com, but .NET?
I've never actually heard of it.

MillField

YouTube has a ton of great tutorials (Particularly TheNewBoston). Codeacademy is also pretty good.

Under_Graduate

http://www.codecademy.com/learn

Just completed their javascript tutorial.

Going into a course like Computer science, what would be other key areas to have a knowledge of?

I see they have website design and web developer skills, and something called API's.

Aside from having done the javascript tutorial, what else would stand out as being useful to learn?

Under_Graduate

ScottStorm wrote: »

Take a look at teamtreehouse too (not looked at their java stuff yet as still working my way yhrough their php courses.), download the jdk from oracle, follow the set up instructions. Then download an editor like notepad++ or sublime, and then follow the tutorials. I would stay clear of eclipse or netbeans for the moment.

And just one thing if you don't mind.

The specific Java compiler I'm having difficulty locating.
There's so many add ons and updates and what not.

Could you link me to the page that has the relevant download please?
PM if necessary.

Buford T Justice

Under_Graduate wrote: »

And just one thing if you don't mind.

The specific Java compiler I'm having difficulty locating.
There's so many add ons and updates and what not.

Could you link me to the page that has the relevant download please?
PM if necessary.

Depending on the system you're using, check firstly if you have java installed. Go to the command line and type java -version and if you get something like the below, you have java installed

java version "1.8.0_45"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_45-b14)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.45-b02, mixed mode)

if you get 'command not found' then download and install the JRE and also the JDK. You will need the JDK. there are any amount of tutorials around to help you with this.

scut_07

Teamtreehouse.com is great. If gives you a bit of structure to learning rather than looking at random videos on youtube.
Lynda.com can also be quite good but is more geared towards design rather than pure development.
All of the sites above though are all top notch!

Under_Graduate

Pfff, going through theNewBoston tutorials, but it's all the individual applications of Java, and at no point does it really allow us to put to use them applications in terms of building a small program, to reinforce what we just did.

I thought codeacademy was very good like that, as it had a bunch of small projects to build.

It's quite challenging to put together something functional on the basis of these small pieces of information as per theNewBoston individual tutorials.

Am I just looking at the wrong series of tutorials?


Just out of curiosity, comparing following these tutorials to doing an actual computer science University module - how do they compare to one another?

Are they similar in that were make notes of the smaller functioning pieces of code, being expected to learn them or commit them to memory, and then we're confronted with having to build something off of them?

I'm just curious as to what degree one can actually become proficient at coding through youtube tutorials.

NeutralHandle

I would stay clear of eclipse or netbeans for the moment.

I would say that Eclipse simplifies things for a beginner, not that it makes things more complicated. It shouldn't be hard to set up. It has intellisense - which includes autocomplete as you type and contextual help. This reduces the need to memorise things and focus on developing understanding, which is far more important.

Under_Graduate

The new boston tutorials instructed me to install eclipse, so I've been working with that.
It does seem useful in determining flaws.

But ttt for how this method of learning compares to university modules.

NeutralHandle

University modules tend to be focused on assessments, which generally include pen and paper assessments as a matter of logistical necessity. This has a strong influence of pushing the student towards memorisation of things they need to know for exams, and away from developing understanding. Unfortunately pen and paper assessments are bad for programming because they bias results towards accurate memorisation and away from good understanding.

University modules tend to provide deeper understanding, often across several modules. Studying hardware topics will help you understand programming at a deeper level. For example a programmer might become very confused if they encounter unexpected results with floating point types if they don't know how they are stored, or if they encounter various overflow errors. This is particularly relevant when you are learning more abstracted technologies that take care of more aspects under the hood.

[ASP.NET Webforms are an example of an overly abstracted technology. It is possible to become a Web Developer without understanding HTML, CSS or HTTP if you learn Webforms. The result will be butchered HTML, probably no CSS but you won't actually know this. (ASP.NET MVC takes a far better approach.) Easy to criticise a technology that has fallen out of fashion maybe. I perceive similar enough problems with Bootstrap. To much learning bootstrap, not enough learning what bootstrap does. Once you try to move outside it you'll run into problems - for example if you need to give semantic meaning to your CSS class names.]

University modules are supposed to focus on profound learning outcomes that are independent from particular programming languages. Online courses are likely to focus on pragmatic approaches, which don't always pay off in the long-term. This is a generalisation though.

I've been impressed with what I've seen on Lynda.com. It's generally good lectures by good lecturers, with transcripts etc.

The structure offered by university courses is definitely beneficial, assuming the programme structure is good in the first place.

At the end of the day it's down to the student though. You don't have to focus on results over understanding in college - you're likely o do better if you don't in fact. One thing that is studied in the field of third level education is how to encourage results-focused students to become more knowledge-focused in fact. Likewise if you are teaching yourself via Web resources, you don't have to be overly focused on getting immediate results, at the expense of deeper understanding of what is happening under the hood.

Joel Spolsky talked about the notion of leaky abstractions, which I've talked about above, in his blogs and they are a great resource. He was one of the people who set up Stack Overflow.

joelonsoftware.com/

Under_Graduate

manjosh wrote: »

codeacademy.com. Beginner friendly is their selling point.

Am I right in saying codeacademy covers mainly just website design based coding, and not actual application development?

Just looking over theNewBoston tutorials now, their content differs greatly from what's available on codeacademy.

Under_Graduate

Pfff - how old is that kid giving thenewboston tutorials?

He sounds about 18, but is apparently a completely competent programmer.

Damn....

I've recently discovered, Java vs javascript, are somewhat different.

I thought after doing the codeacademy course on javascript, I'd have a grip on what was going on.

Hell no!

Java itself is waaay more complicated.

I don't know how a one year conversion course in these things would be...
Almost a full degree of incredibly challenging material crammed into one year.

Graham

Read this:

Java is to JavaScript as car is to carpet
http://unroutable.blogspot.ie/2013/10/java-is-to-javascript-as-car-is-to.html