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When you learn to read, you can then read to learn. And it’s the same thing with coding. Here, 10 venues where you can learn coding. Try a one-hour tutorial designed for all ages in over 45 languages. Join millions of students and teachers in over 180 countries starting with an Hour of Code.
McLaughlin Jordan Minor The Best Programs for Learning to Code No matter your skill level or experience, there's an online school that can teach you how to code. Everyone Needs to Learn to Code Coding is a critical skill these days, and not just for web developers. Whether you're building a personal website, assembling a professional portfolio, creating a blog, or contributing to an online publication, knowing even the basics of coding can go a long way. Of course, if you've ever tried to learn how to code—and I've taken many a course over the years—you know that it can be a frustrating and overwhelming process. Online learning programs can make the process less intimidating, enabling you to move at your own pace, seek help when you need it, and repeat lessons as needed until you have a real grasp on how and why your code is working the way it does. We looked at a wide variety of online schools aimed at different age groups and skill sets to find the best coding classes. Here's how to find the best online coding class for you.
Look at the Price Tag Price is always a concern, no matter what you're buying. There are subscription-based programs such as Code Avengers, Treehouse, Safari Books Online, CodeHS, Code School, and SitePoint (formerly Learnable) that offer access to all classes in the course catalog for a monthly or annual fee. Check to see if the program lets you pause your membership, which is helpful if you want to save your progress without racking up fees while you're away on a trip or too busy to access the classes.
Lynda.com features classes on every topic under the sun, as do similar general education services not featured here such as, and, and there are more than enough coding options to make a subscription or individual purchase worthwhile. But if all you care about is coding, you might be better served by a program specifically tailored to your needs, especially if you're willing to pay. Codecademy, on the other hand, offers all of its courses and materials for free, though it charges a monthly fee if you want to access quizzes and other learning tools. Paid classes generally offer more in the way of course depth, breadth, and presentation, but if you're determined and resourceful, you may find that free classes are sufficient for your needs.
Variety of Courses Offered After price, the most important thing to consider is how many courses are offered and the variety of topics covered. Some offer straight HTML, CSS, and other Web technologies, while others offer classes in advanced languages like Python and C, mobile app and video game development, and working with APIs. In terms of the sheer number of courses, paid classes usually have the edge over free ones.
But a huge library can also be overwhelming, so starting off with a smaller, more-focused program is also a good option. The course format is worth paying attention to as well. All you really need to code is a functional text editor, and most of these programs feature one of those. Depending on your learning style, you might appreciate the more-polished video tutorials of services like Khan Academy and CodeHS. Many of these online coding schools, including Lynda, SitePoint, Code Avengers, Codecademy, and Treehouse have started offering curriculums, so you can choose a broad topic—similar to choosing a major in college—and then access all the necessary courses you'll need to master the topic. This serves to both organize your studies and enable you to skip ahead if you've already mastered some skills.
Treehouse even offers a structured certification program. Ease of Getting Started If you're a beginner, you need a program that's easy to dive into and keep up with as the material becomes more complex.
Actually, that's something that's ideal for learners at all levels. You'll also need encouragement to keep you going.
Most of these services offer badges or other rewards when you hit milestones, and show your progress on your dashboard. The best services offer quizzes and challenges so you can test your skills. Testing isn't just for beginners—even experienced programmers want feedback on how they are doing.
Newer programs also like to treat progress like a game, rewarding students with shiny badges as they level up their skills. You won't find these features in all programs, though.
However, if you're serious about pursuing coding as a career, eventually you'll need to ditch the easy stuff and take on some more challenging material. Consider switching to a paid program like Code School, Code Avengers, or Treehouse to continue your coding education. On the other hand, Free Code Camp will help you take the knowledge you've learned and use it to help a real-life nonprofit organization. Something for the Kids If you're a parent or teacher, getting kids to code also makes sense. Programming teaches kids to think logically, develops problem-solving skills, and improves how they interact with technology. And it can prepare them for the workforce of tomorrow.
CodeHS has special features educators can use in the classroom and a wonderful sandbox mode that students can use to express their coding creativity. Other programs like CodeCombat treat coding more like a video game, so kids will definitely stay interested. Coding is just another way to make cool things they can show off, which means kids of any age can learn to code. CodeCombat and Treehouse offer special pricing and curricula for teachers and students. Moving beyond the scope of this particular roundup, goes even further with gaming, teaching coding (and animation) as an important part of its game-design curriculum.
Youth Digital's tutorials are pricey, but the lessons are robust and teach kids how to make everything from 3D platformers to 2D sidescrollers to animated movies to Minecraft mods. Speaking of gaming and kids, Move the Turtle, Daisy the Dinosaur, and similar apps treat coding like a video game, keeping the interest of even very young kids. With coding, as with any kind of language, the younger you can start learning, the better.
If you're an educator interested in other ways technology can help your school, check out our list of. Help and Support Finally, you need help when you get stuck on an exercise or a quiz. We like services such as Treehouse and Codecademy, which offer active student forums to help you work through problems and get a second eye on long blocks of code. Code Avengers now has live chat available, and an exclusive Slack channel. Support for bugs and website problems, which most of these services offer in some way, is also key.
Some communities encourage you to create a GitHub account, so you can easily collaborate on code with fellow students. While Lynda and Khan Academy are excellent generalist services, they can't offer this level of coding-specific help and support.
Dennis O'Reilly/CNET Not so long ago, typing was for secretaries, journalists, and would-be authors. Now we're all tapping away at keyboards and screens from morning until night.
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The number of people who spend their workday coding continues to soar. In the not-too-distant future, writing code may be as commonplace as typing and other forms of text-keying are today.
Learning how to code has never been easier. Whether you're a programming newbie or an old hand looking to learn a new skill or two, these four free services have you covered. (Note that all but W3Schools.com requires that you register to use the service by providing an e-mail address and password.) All four of the coding tutorials I tested have their positive attributes (ahem), but my favorite is Ruby for Beginners, which was just my speed. The lessons prompt you to write and run the code for each step, and when you make a mistake - which is key to learning how to program - the correction hints are clear.
The video lessons in Programming curriculum keep you engaged in the subject and are perfect for folks starting at square one. However, the complete program could easily take weeks to complete. I made it through 24 percent of the Ruby tutorial before I hit a lesson that stopped me in my tracks: in the loops section, of course. If you've done a little coding in the past, you'll likely have better luck than I did with Codecademy's write-it-yourself approach. The simplest of the coding tutorials I tried was, which you can complete without having to register (unlike the other three services). Each of its dozens of lessons includes plenty of 'Try it yourself' options for practicing the technique the step covers. Related stories.
LearnStreet puts the focus on the code The first thing you notice when you start the lessons on LearnStreet is the prominent code-entry screen on the right side of the window. Under the code is the run environment that demonstrates the code you write. The instructions are listed on the left side of the screen. LearnStreet's Ruby tutorial prompts you with hints and answers when you make a mistake in its coding exercises. Screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly/CNET It took me about two hours to work my way through the first five lessons in LearnStreet's 12-lesson Ruby for Beginners.
Once you finish the site's programming courses, you can turn your attention to the dozens of coding projects for JavaScript, Python, and Ruby. The projects can be sorted by level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and by category (tools, games, and algorithms). LearnStreet also offers free courseware for teachers who want to instruct their students in coding. Khan Academy lays a solid programming foundation The Khan Academy is famous for its ground-breaking video tutorials covering nearly every subject a student is likely to encounter. Rather than focus on a particular programming language, the Khan Academy's programming module uses JavaScript to illustrate concepts that apply to coding in general while also teaching some practical JavaScript skills. The courses are divided into about a dozen categories, each of which has from three to 12 separate lessons.
Each video lesson animates the coding technique in a window on the left and shows the result of the code running in a window on the right. After you watch the coding in action, you're challenged to write code that duplicates the operation. When your code isn't quite right, the tutorial provides hints to help you spot and correct the problem. After the coding technique is demonstrated in a video, you're challenged to write code that executes the technique. Screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly/CNET It's easy to navigate the Khan Academy lessons and jump between them and the site's other features. A space is provided for creating your own programs, which you can save in your profile and share with the world. You can also browse the programs written by other students.
Like LearnStreet, teachers can sign up to be 'coaches' for their students and manage their students' progress. You can monitor your own progress and set goals for yourself in your dashboard, which prominently displays the badges you've won and your 'energy points.' Expand your programming horizons with Codecademy As much as I appreciate Codecademy's polished interface and interactive tutorials, more than once I was stymied by the lack of help when the code I wrote failed to execute as expected. Admittedly, my programming experience is limited to HTML and JavaScript. The lessons in Codecademy's Ruby tutorial had me backing up and restarting several individual steps, even with the hints that the lessons offer to us tyro programmers when something's not running as expected. Most of the Codecademy lesson screen is taken up by the window in which you enter code. The instructions for the step are in the left pane.
After you enter your code and click the Save & Submit Code button, the code runs in a pop-up window on the right side of the screen. The code window is prominent in the Codecademy's Ruby tutorial.
The hints for correcting your coding mistakes aren't always as helpful as they could be. Screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly/CNET I was making fairly good progress through the Ruby tutorial until I reached the Loops & Iterators module. When I took a class years ago in C I recall struggling through the same subject. After about a half-dozen attempts, I threw in the towel. (As with most tutorials, you can't proceed to the next module until you complete the current one successfully.) Keeping it simple pays off for W3Schools.com At first glance, the JavaScript tutorial on W3Schools.com looked too basic to be useful.
After I had stepped through the first half-dozen lessons, I found the pace of the lessons kept me interested without overwhelming me. The site offers tutorials in HTML, CSS, XML, SQL, PHP, JQuery, and other Web technologies in addition to JavaScript. There are also demos for building a Web site, server technologies, and Web databases. The lessons are at a slower pace than those of the other three tutorials I tried, and they entail lots of scrolling down the page. You read the instructions and are then shown the code. Click the Try It Yourself button to open a new browser window that lets you write and run the lesson's code. W3Schools.com's JavaScript tutorial explains the coding technique, presents the code, and then lets you duplicate the code in a run environment.
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Screenshot by Dennis O'Reilly/CNET The Basic section of W3Schools.com's JavaScript tutorial has 19 separate lessons, each of which will take most people 15 minutes to a half hour to complete. There are eight more Advanced lessons, as well as eight to 12 lessons for HTML DOM and Browser BOM. Another dozen or so modules provide libraries, examples, and references. What a difference an hour makes This is Computer Science Education Week, and Code.org is honoring the occasion by sponsoring the program that encourages teachers to spend an hour teaching their students how to code. (My certificate of completion is shown at the top of this post.) The site has tutorials that let students as young as 6 years old write their first program in an Angry Birds-like environment. The site also has the Khan Academy's Introduction to JavaScript intended for students in middle school and up, in addition to other app-development resources for students of all ages, many of which are designed to be used offline.