

Ask HN: Where can I go to learn basic coding? - keecham

As a co-founder of a startup, I am on the "business" end of things. But I want to start learning how to actually do the tech side as well - obviously, not an easy proposition, but I'd at least like to start learning so that I can be intelligent about what my tech guys are doing.<p>So I know this is a very broad question, but a Google search on this has proven fruitless. If you were starting on Day 1 of your coding journey, what would you learn and where?<p>Thanks in advance.
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freshfey
I asked a similar question a few days ago here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3007945> (there are some gems in this
thread!). I'm actually on the quest to find out what's the best method to
learn programming for non-technical people, but I'm still compiling some
learnings.

If you're using Ruby on Rails in your startup, start directly with
www.railstutorial.org - it's a great introduction to not only programming but
all the side things that programmers do (version control, deployment, etc.)

If you need a Python or Ruby introduction, Zed Shaw's are very good too!
<http://learncodethehardway.org/>

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keecham
Great suggestions, thanks! I'd love to keep touch as we both start the coding
journey, could be a good way to keep us both on top of progress!

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Edmond
You could start by toying around with Phyzixlabs Software. It is a platform
for building and using academic applications based on Javascript and SVG. The
motivation for PhyzixLabs is to make it easy to build and use applications
such as these: <http://phet.colorado.edu/>.

It is a cloud based programming environment so you wont have to deal with
setting up your own coding environment which is usually the biggest road block
to new coders.

Below are some live demos of apps built on the platform and a couple of video
tours:

*Firefox, Chrome,Safari or Opera required.

Spring Mechanics:
[http://hadron.phyzixlabs.com/embed/?action=get_main&embe...](http://hadron.phyzixlabs.com/embed/?action=get_main&embed_key=bef824296b9e17ea55855a8da9354c9d&width=500&height=480)

Projectile Motion:
[http://hadron.phyzixlabs.com/embed/?action=get_main&embe...](http://hadron.phyzixlabs.com/embed/?action=get_main&embed_key=249fb8e996e2a523f208ca9e95b3b415&width=500&height=480)

Here is an example of the above programs embedded in a blog post:
[http://colabopad.blogspot.com/2011/03/public-release-of-
simu...](http://colabopad.blogspot.com/2011/03/public-release-of-simupad.html)

User Demo : <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhZcIMvejVA>

Developer Demo: <http://youtu.be/wma9MU2e_U0>

Feel free to contact me with newbie questions! Ed.

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keecham
Thanks for the suggestions Ed, I'll be looking into all of this tonight.

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Toddward
Codecademy is pretty awesome if you really want to start with the very basics.
The lessons they have so far cover Javascript, but the features they teach you
span most languages.

<http://codecademy.com>

When I started out, though, I had a clear vision of what it was I wanted to
do, bought a book, and started hacking away. I learned best by jumping in head
first with the hard stuff, but I realize a lot of people learn differently
than I do. I would say that if you find the Codecademy courses too easy or
boring, you should try my approach instead.

As far as what to learn...it kind of depends on what you're trying to build.
Back when I was teaching myself, I was using PHP and MySQL, but the world
appears to have mostly moved on from the LAMP stack of yesteryear. I'm partial
to Python these days, but I've always enjoyed Java as well. Javascript has
blown up in a huge way in the past couple of years and platforms like Node.js
have only made it that much more practical. If I were to start learning web
development today, Javascript is probably where I would start.

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tnorthcutt
I clicked on the parent to suggest this, but with the caveat that codecademy
hasn't added new lessons since they launched, which is kinda disappointing. It
could grow into a great resource, but so far it's not there. You can finish
the lessons in a couple of hours.

~~~
Toddward
They recently added a second lesson. But I agree, the level of content is not
sufficient yet. I was more suggesting that they use it as a resource for
learning the _very_ basics and then move on.

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runjake
Use the search. This question gets asked ALL the time and there's no use
rehashing what's been hashed over and over.

You'll probably find a lot of references to LPTHW.

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DanielStraight
Zed Shaw's Learn Python The Hard Way:

<http://learnpythonthehardway.org/>

