One of the best things about the multitude of resources on the internet in 2012 is that it’s possible to use them to teach yourself almost anything at all. If programming happens to be one of your goals as someone who’s keen to learn, then Codecademy could easily become your first and only stop when it comes to introducing you to the fundamentals of programming, and some of the most popular languages in a largely web-based digital era – Javascript, HTML and CSS.
One of the best things about it is that it’s designed for total beginners, so you’ll soon find that it’s not difficult to pick up the absics of what you’re doing at all – in fact, it’s actually very easy to start scripting your own basic functions and variables with only half an hour of reading and writing code. Any questions are easily answered by the horde of helpful people waiting in the questions and answer area of the site, so if you’re unsure, ask away, drift off, play some partypoker and return to a thorough, well thought-through answer.
The best part is that it’s all practically applied – you’re given tasks that make sense, and asked to apply what you know to the problem at hand. A large part of programming is simply presenting yourself with a series of problems, and working out how to solve them with the tools at your disposal. Codecademy makes this fun and interesting, and you’ll be rewarded with points and badges as you go along, making it a fun way to learn and even a fun way to compete with your friends.
So if you’ve never coded before, and you really want to try it out, then go ahead! There’s nothing stopping you, and you’ll only get better from here on out. So go on – get coding!