One of the things that I’ve heard from many people is that they wish they had gotten into development sooner. I can’t blame them. It’s an fun hobby (and career!).
The thing is, there’s no clear place to start. I mean, it’s challenging enough to determine what language, platform, and operating system, you’re targeting. Then you have to narrow down which book(s), tutorials, and/or courses to attend.
Granted, all of those things are good decisions with which to wrestle, but don’t forget the web. There are tons of free resources, code snippets, open projects, and communities that can provide a ton of useful information.
If you’re looking to get into development (or just have programmer’s block), browse around these four sites…
Google Code
Several years ago, Google began offering free project hosting (using Subversion). There was one stipulation – your project had to be considered open-source. Fast-forward a few years, you’ve got thousands of source code repositories from projects written in anything from Android to the Z programming language.
Like all other Google products, you can search them all.
GitHub
In comparison to Google, GitHub is a newcomer though its popularity has been rapidly increasing.
Essentially, GitHub is another project hosting service similar to Google Code. It differs in that it using the Git version control system. The site also specifically facilitates social coding and has numerous features to support that goal.
Like Google, you can search all of the active, open-source projects, too.
Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow doesn’t offer project hosting. It’s a question and answer website that supports any programming language. It’s a great place to go if you have questions about anything code-related, but is also a fun place to browse if you’re looking for code examples and/or inspiration for a new project.
Tuts+
The Tuts+ Network provides a variety of paid and free content aiming at anything from web development to media creation. If you’re not subscribed to any of their resources, then you’re missing out.
But aside from simply staying updated on their published content, their archives provide some great tips on how to achieve certain things in web development, tutorials on various technologies, and can also provide some ideas for development.
I wouldn’t say that you should approach programming with a sink-or-swim mentality, but it takes an extraordinary amount of time to become proficient with a set of technologies. Luckily, we’ve got greater access to resources than programmers did even a decade ago.
dewde says
A bit confused why the thumbnail for a post on programming would show markup?
π
peace | dewde
Tom says
Intended to use more of the JavaScript but … meh … π
Ben Miller says
Neat list. One of my favorite places I recommend for people just getting started in the web development field is w3schools.com. They have start-from-the-beginning tutorials on a variety of browser-side and server-side languages, all free. Lots of good reference material for the different languages, too.
Tom says
That site has been around for what feels like forever. I remember spending time on it back when I was in high school, even.
But yeah, the content is excellent.
Brian Notess says
Stack Overflow saved my rear countless times when i was tasked with writing in iPhone app- having no real programming experience.
The thought of it still makes me shudder.
I’d love to find a resource that could help me get a better big picture understanding of programming best practices. That would be better than just hacking at example-code until it looks or acts the way I want it to (which is my normal MO).
Tom says
I’ve considered doing a series that focuses on true software engineering principles (versus hacking together code to get something out the door) but it’s a ridiculously wide field to target.
Trying to find a good point of entry is one challenge, producing the content that’s digestible for a variety of languages and experience is another.
It’s not something I’m against doing .. just gotta figure out how to do it π
Brian Notess says
Hmm, that does seem like a challenge.
I’d like to request JavaScript as a point of entry π It seems practical for a lot of readers who are doing mostly web-related programming, but (from what I understand) can be pretty complex.
Personally, I would read it no matter what language you used. It’s the principles I’m interested in.
Tom says
Word! Making a note of it now. Will see what we can do here in the future!
Prateek Gupta says
hello,your articles is very use full for me…..Thanku