Hello guys, if you want to coding and looking for best online courses to learn to code then you have come to the right place. In this article, I am going to share best coding and programming online courses. Coding, computers, programming, and IT has been a buzzword all through the world for last 10-15 years. In the same durations, we have seen several tech companies touch a milestone of a couple of trillion dollars in market cap. Everyday, in different parts of the world, we see new companies and organizations growing at unprecedented pace. All of this has created a huge interest in programming/coding. Everybody all through the world is looking to hit the next great idea. All this success, but the basic day one question for a new person remains the same. Where do I begin? Here in this article, I will try and answer this question for you. This article will be helpful for the following people: a. An adult trying to transition into the tech/programming industry. b. A student trying to embark on a path of knowledge and a career. c. A layman/hobbyist who wants to understand how the whole ecosystem works. Pre-requisites: A desire to learn, a person to learn, a computer and internet access. Before We Begin… Ask yourself why? Ask yourself why you want to learn coding. This exercise helps clear up your mind and lets you focus on your goal. It also helps to keep your target straight as a goal is already defined. Some common goals are listed below: a. Career change from a non-technical to a technical stream. b. To get creative and design new apps and devices. c. To build websites and webpages. d. Experimenting with devices like Rapsberry-pi. How this helps? Answering this question correctly will enable you to decide the programming language you need to use. It will also help you decide on the time and money you need to commit to this goal. Choose your programming language.After you have decided why you want to code, the next logical step is deciding which language to learn. Here, things get tricky. There is no one size fits all here. Frankly, there is no “best” programming language to learn. Industry-wide, HTML and CSS are considered as the easiest point of entry in the world of programming, but they are pretty much limited to designing basic websites. For more advanced websites, you need a grasp of JavaScript, SQL, python, PHP etc. For mobile development, Swift or flutter can be used for IOS apps, while Android requires a knowledge of Java or Kotlin. Game developers on the other hand depend on gaming engines like unreal, unity or even C#. Usually, the professional recommendation is starting with Something like Python or C# or JavaScript. However, all this is a moot discussion. The best and the brightest thing is to pick up a language and start learning it. Once you master the first one, the next one, almost always is way easier to pick up. What next? After deciding the 2 W’s (Why? and What?) It’s time to get your hands dirty. Let’s now delve into the world of coding with the help of few courses (paid or free, online or in person) and books. Paid or Free Courses? Online or Instructor led trainings? You-tube is a great source of free courses. There are tons and tons of videos on almost all coding topics ranging from outstanding to outright dreadful. Although, if you can separate the wheat from the chaff, then it’s a pretty good place to start with. Some notable channels to check out are: · CS Dojo · The net ninja · Harvard CS50 Another great option for free courses is The Odin Project which is a community driven project and contains some of the best open-source content. A very similar project is the freeCodeCamp. It is a non-profit organization focused solely on making web-development accessible to all. Similarly, there are thousands of websites which offer paid online courses. A few notable websites out of those are: Udemy Coursera edX educative.io Treehouse LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) Udemy Edureka A few of these (Udacity, treehouse and LinkedIn learning) also offer a subscription model which will get you some top-level help and support from tutors and trainers. Most of them also offer some mode of online instructor led trainings where you get to learn new things with your peers. Harvard and Stanford have online courses on you-tube which cover their entire basic CS curriculum. The professors in those videos are amazing, and Harvard even has their assignments available online. You can even earn a certificate by completing all the assignments. Personal Projects A personal programming project was, is and will always be the final proof of your will to learn coding. It’s a proof of the skills that you have learnt. It should always be evolving. So, start small, and use the skills that you are learning to build upon the foundation of your idea. Unless you have a few of these projects under your belt, you will be considered a newbie. It’s the completed projects that will make you a professional and let your career soar to new heights. Small Steps Its very much expected for a beginner to have doubts and get stuck on small things. Never get disheartened and abandon your appetite to learn. Remember to google and research online for all your doubts. Coding is very detail-oriented task and you can’t just jump through few of them. Remember, all the fun is in details. Patience and determination are your best friends in this epic journey. Know your Best friends Error Codes are your best friends. Always make a note of them and google for the solution. The one thing you need to keep in mind is that if you are facing some issue, someone, somewhere would already have faced it and fixed it. As a coder/developer, Stack-Overflow, Reddit and github are supposed to be your other best friends. Mentorship and peer programming Coding gets easier when you have someone to help you out. A mentor to help you out in your starting phase can be godsent help for those small issues you see every now and then. Someone who is learning with you might help you to get a better grasp of concepts, assignments, and tutorials. As with life, a companion to walk with you makes even coding easier.