Learn Coding With These 5 Online Coding Courses for Beginners

Here are five websites that you should consider using if you are a new programmer. Each of them has options for brand new (never coded before) learners, and people who have tried it a few times and are ready to learn for real. Take a look at a few YouTube videos on what coding is all about, understand the principles of coding, and then give these websites a try.

1 – CodeMonkey Courses
There are a lot of coding programs for kids in this website, but don't let that fool you. The cutesy graphics and fun text is simply window dressing for some very cleverly curated lessons, games, tips and advice on how to code. There is this silly idea that kids courses and beginner courses are somehow different. The kids need to learn as beginners, just like adults need to learn as beginners. All that is different is that websites don't want to scare off the kiddies, so they throw in a few cartoon graphics to keep them happy. If you are a beginning, strongly consider using CodeMonkey courses and games.

2 – Wibit.Net
Here is another website almost as good as the CodeMonkey website. Again, you get great access to games and online challenges, but the two nerds who built the website have set courses where they start from absolute zero. For example, on the C++ course, they start their lessons with where you can get the tools you need for free, including the editor and rendering tools, and they start out by teaching you the “Hello World” program on a simple notepad (the notepad app that comes with every Windows computer). The learning material on Wibit.Net gets very deep, and you may need to go over some of their lessons twice to be sure you can do the next step, but the level of quality on display is amazing when you consider the two creators did the website themselves and that it took them nearly a decade to complete.

3 – Udemy
The whole Udemy website is far from perfect, but occasionally they have something on there that works well. They have a free course on learning Python that is probably the most beginner friendly piece of content on the entire website. So, why is this website so high up on this list if it is far from perfect? Well, this article took weeks to research, and there was only limited time to dedicate to each website that was tested. Udemy did have some garbage on its pages, but the fact they have this good of a Python tutorial and it is completely free, suggests that if you go searching on their website, you are probably going to find a few other diamonds in the rough too.

4 – Coursera.org
There is an introduction to programming that is offered by a UK university, and it is pretty good. The problem with Coursera is that it is more expensive than that others on this list, which is a shame because if it were cheaper, it could have climbed higher in this list. They want you to enroll in their courses, which costs money, and even though their introduction to programming is pretty good, it isn't worth getting into debt over. If you are struggling with the other websites on this list, then consider paying this website. Otherwise, use one of the websites listed above.

5 – SkillShare
There are plenty of courses on the Skillshare website, and where they are not always up to scratch, and since we couldn’t simply write the words “Use YouTube” as a viable option, then SkillShare is pretty okay. The quality of the lessons depends on the teachers, but even though anybody can offer lessons, there is a fair amount of curation. You are not getting a lessons from crazy Mavis who hangs out by the bins: the course creators have to show a fair amount of knowledge before their virtual lessons are hosted on the website. There is some degree of curation, and if courses are bad and people complain, then the Skillshare company seems to do something about it. Nevertheless, try the other websites on this list before you try SkillShare.