Why you should learn to code online

The past weeks has been sort-of great for me in a way. I've had a lot of people tell me that I'm great at coding/programming and that I should look for a coding job. Hearing that gives me an incredible boost of self confidence but usually this statement follows with a question: "Where did you learn to code?", and then my usual reply: "Online, for free."

Cue a lot of questions about "How is that possible" and "Is it effective" and "Is it free" to finally, "Tell me how I can do that too". That is exactly what I'm going to do in this post but first, let's answer a question.

Why online?

This section of this post is a little influenced by the state of computer education in Pakistan, or in Karachi more specifically. There are numerous institutions claiming to teach you to code in "X time" but I've seen that they teach you nothing. A lot of my friends have taken courses from these institutions in lets say Web Development but can't even build a proper simple website. I always recommend online resources for numerous reasons, the main ones being that they're free and taught by industry experts with best practices. I don't know about you but I'd rather learn from the comfort of my home, for free, from someone who knows everything about the subject than paying a lot of money to learn bad practices from a mediocre teacher who hardly knows what he's teaching.

Now that that's done, here are some trusted places to learn from. All are free unless specified.

• Free Code Camp - Teaches full-stack web development
• Shay Howe - Learn to code HTML and CSS
• Learn Code the Hard Way - Books on different subjects by Zed A. Shaw
• Thinkster - Web and Mobile Engineering
• DevTips - Videos on web Development/Design