How to become a better web developer? There are countless ways to approach this subject. But here’s a list of on-line resources to learn web technologies, programming and much more, that will help you decide.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Benjamin Franklin
If you are a software developer at any level, you probably know best how much time of learning it cost to be where you are now. Everybody has to start somewhere. It could have been an IT-related field of study in college, boot camp or a course. Even your own room, which nowadays is also a pretty common place to begin your career – sounds good, right?
If a programmer is self-taught, for her or him the most common method of exploring IT world probably is on-line learning and most of the experienced software developers would say that the documentation of specific technology or language is the best possible solution for this. And it is very true – documentations are probably most current and verified sources provided. But most of them are written in a more technical style that not everyone may like, so wouldn’t it benefit if the programmer will learn in a variety of ways? Methods of learning, developing skills, practice coding is countless.
Learn from other developers!
Nowadays developers teach developers, through on-line teaching, pair coding etc. We can benefit the most from other programmers. Not only it is a great opportunity to learn from more experienced colleagues, but also gives a new perspective for the teachers. You are becoming a true master in your field of expertise if you can share your knowledge in the simplest possible way. However, let’s talk about those who benefit from learning from sources that are widely available today. There are lots of courses for the very beginners in coding, but if you want to expand your current knowledge of some technology or programming language – let’s learn something new! Also, if you’re a more experienced developer you can find some exercises and challenges at any level of difficulty to train your brain and improve your algorithmic way of thinking.
We all are different in terms of broadening one’s knowledge. Some of you are probably 100% practical learners, which is very desirable in the IT industry. But being aware of some processes and mechanisms that are happening under the hood may also be good to know. Another topic is time – not everyone would find several hours of constant education effective. Sometimes one, but intense hour can be more fruitful. You’re the one who needs to find the balance. So, let’s wait no more and explore some tools and sources to expand your skill set!
Legend (to let you know what to expect from each one of the sources):
THEORY – is fully or for the most part theoretical way of learning (docs, video courses)
PRACTICE – is fully or for the most part practical – consists of exercises, challenges, quizzes
FREE – is mostly free
PAID – is mostly paid
SHORT LEARNING – usually not much time needed to progress in exercise/learning
LONG LEARNING – usually more than 1 hour needed to dive into the topic
DevHints
THEORY FREE SHORT LEARNING
DevHints is a free cheat sheet for developers. DevHints provides lots of useful tips and information in a nutshell.
Udemy
THEORY / PRACTICE PAID LONG LEARNING
Udemy is probably the most popular website with video courses for programmers. Why is it so popular? Because you’re learning from (in most cases) reputable developers, who give you tens of hours of quality videos in thousands of topics and technologies (some teachers also provide exercises). Most courses are paid.
Eduweb
THEORY PRACTICE PAID LONG LEARNING
Eduweb is an on-line school (polish language only) that gives you the opportunity to for example attend in a learning path in the field of front-end, UX/UI design, graphics and much more. Most courses are paid.
EggHead
THEORY PAID LONG LEARNING / LONG LEARNING
EggHead provides mostly paid courses which are related to JavaScript. These are one of the best quality sources of web development.
MDN Mozilla Developer Center
THEORY FREE SHORT LEARNING
MDN Mozilla Developer Center is huge documentation of open web technologies you need to create browser content (HTML, CSS, JS, Graphics etc.). MDN also provides a few tutorials and guides.
SoloLearn
THEORY/PRACTICE FREE SHORT LEARNING
SoloLearn is an interactive learning experience mostly for beginners. Mobile App is perfect to fill in your time while for example commuting. SoloLearn contains many languages and quizzes in which you can compete online with friends.
Codewars
PRACTICE FREE LONG LEARNING / SHORT LEARNING
Codewars gives you one of the best pieces of practice coding available. You can choose a programming language, difficulty level from 8 to 1 and have plenty of problems and challenges to solve. The advantage is built-in code editor and tests coverage.
Scrimba
THEORY/PRACTICE FREE SHORT LEARNING
Scrimba is a unique, free way of learning. This is a video course which consists of short presentations covering mostly web technologies, but the biggest advantage is the interactive environment – you can change the content of the video and make live updates in the code!
FreeCodeCamp
PRACTICE FREE LONG LEARNING / SHORT LEARNING
FreeCodeCamp should be a true friend of a web developer. This fully free source offers enough amount of exercises and paths to cover hundreds of hours of learning. You have the option to choose which topic you want to go through and then you’re provided with a bit of theory and practical example required to accomplish each task with built-in code compiler.
Exercism
PRACTICE FREE LONG LEARNING / SHORT LEARNING
Exercism as its name is telling us provides exercises in 51 programming languages. Each language path have different challenges and student have experienced mentors available for him – they are reviewing your solutions.
Bonus CSS games:
CSS Dinner
Flexbox Froggy
Grid Garden