Start Over Coder

Teaching someone else to code is a great way to enhance your learning, even if you’re not too far from being a beginner yourself. In this episode I’ll talk about why, and how you can give it a try. Show Links: Girl Develop It How Your Brain Learns (Lifehacker)

If you’re new to programming you will undoubtedly come across GitHub & Git pretty early on. This episode describes the difference between the two, and explains how you’ll use both as you learn to code. If you're ready to get started, here are some of the beginner tutorials I found helpful when I first started using Git & GitHub: Install Git Create a GitHub account Tutorial to put a project from your local computer onto GitHub How To Do The GitHub (YouTube) Dev Tips 'GitHub For Noobs' video playlist (YouTube) And once you're more comfortable, some additional resources to check out: How To Write a Git Commit Message Learn Enough Command Line To Be Dangerous What was it like when you started learning Git? Leave a comment at startovercoder.com/014 or tweet me @startovercoder.

After a few weeks of zero productivity, I’ve set a new learning plan for myself to learn to code. If I’m going to be a professional full-stack developer, I need a plan. The first step is to get over the unhelpful thoughts that stopped my progress in the first place. This episode walks through those thoughts and how to overcome them. Then I signed up for three courses to build the foundation and to keep me on track: Harvard University's CS50 Intro to Computer Science Colt Steele's Web Developer Bootcamp on Udemy Joe Natoli's UX & Web Design Master Course on Udemy In addition to the courses I've also set weekly calendar reminders to stay on track. I expect this new game plan will help me reach my goals and ideally will lead to my first job as a developer! Stay tuned & subscribe to see how it goes. Have you organized a learning plan for yourself when learning to code? I'd love to hear what you did--leave a comment on the website or tweet me @startovercoder.

Learning to code can be really overwhelming, especially if you’re doing it with the hopes to make a major life transition. The overwhelm has been hitting me over the past few weeks, and I’ll unpack that in this episode. If you've experienced the overwhelm, how did you get through it? I'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment at startovercoder.com/012 or tweet @startovercoder.

I’ve just completed my first project where I call an API to randomly generate an inspiring quote, and this episode is all about how I did it. One of the Free Code Camp projects that must be completed while learning JavaScript is to build a random quote generator by calling an external API, and including a button that lets people tweet the randomly generated quote. It was a great project and not as hard as I thought it would be! Before getting started though, I spent a lot of time procrastinating. Part of that led me to the Dev Tips YouTube channel (and in particular this video), which was the inspiration behind my quote machine's video background. Here are the other resources mentioned in the episode: Free video backgrounds from coverr.co Google Fonts Mashape is the API marketplace I mentioned Forismatic created the API I ended up using Working With APIs in JavaScript [video] from The Coding Train Random Quote Machine [video] from Stephen Mayeux My main takeaways / things to remember from this exercise were

I hit my first major stumbling block when it comes to learning to code. I say ‘first’ because I’m sure there will be more! In this episode I share what I think happened, and what I’m going to do differently to make sure this this speed bump doesn’t become a dead end.

The Learn To Code series continues in this episode, as we talk about joining local coding groups! I'm very lucky to live in a major metropolitan area where transportation is easy and there are lots of people learning to code. If that's not the same for you, be sure to check out some of my other episodes in this series (links below). But if you live in a relatively populated area, chances are there are some in-person groups you can join up with like I have. My first suggestion is checking out meetup.com for local groups. Enter your post/zip code and search for random terms like 'coding,' 'programming,' or the name of whatever language you're trying to learn and hopefully you will find some meetups to join. Facebook is another good place to find local groups of people learning to code. If you live near a coding bootcamp, you might also look into whether they offer any free or introductory courses in your area. These may turn out to be a bit of a sales pitch for their school, but you may well learn something and

Hitting a key milestone in learning to code: that moment when you stop the coding exercises and actually build something!  After months of going through exercises and theoretical practice problems, I finally reached a point where I can see some practical uses for JavaScript. In today's episode I share my excitement about it with you, and ask--what are some of your learning milestones?

This time I talk about some ways you can learn to code online if you’re ready to shell out some cash. This is the third episode of my Learn to Code how-to series. If you want to check out previous episodes in the series, you can start with an overview in episode 5 or find out about free online resources in episode 6. Here are the paid courses I shared in this episode: Udemy Udacity Treehouse And here are some more I didn't mention in the episode but are worth checking out! Lynda.com Pluralsight I also mentioned the online bootcamp training programs. I'll talk about bootcamps in depth in a future podcast, but to start your own research now, here are the few that I named which definitely offer online programs: General Assembly Hack Reactor (immersive or part-time) CareerFoundry Bloc Thinkful Coding Dojo One tip--when looking at these resources, be sure to confirm that the course matches the skill level you have already reached. You don't want to go through the basics in each new course you try if you've a

Continuing the learn to code series, in this episode I’ll go deeper into how you can learn to code online, for FREE! The 6 resources I talk about in the podcast are: freeCodeCamp Codecademy Khan Academy Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) such as Coursera, edX, HarvardX YouTube (check out The Net Ninja and his videos, as well as The New Boston) Bootcamp Online Courses Career Foundry Free Web Dev Short Course Hack Reactor Bootcamp Prep Coding Dojo Algorithm App Flatiron School's Learn.co I also mentioned the Career Foundry blog post 20 Ways to Learn How To Code which talks about all of these resources and more--you might want to check it out for further research. Did I miss anything? Leave a comment at startovercoder.com/006 or email me at startovercoder@gmail.com so that I can add it to the list!

Today's episode is an overview of the different types of learn-to-code resources I've found out there. From apps to use when you're bored to full-time study programs, there are a lot of options! Before deciding which option to go for it's important to think about your own personal learning style: are you self-motivated or do you need more structure? Is there something specific you want to build straight away? Do you already have some coding experience? Do you like learning on your own or in a group? Once you have an idea of how you learn best, it's time to look at the different tools. I'll go into these in much more depth in future episodes, but in the meantime here is the overview: Free online resources (YouTube, MOOCs, dedicated learning sites, etc.) Online games & coding challenges (example: Code Wars) Paid online resources (bootcamp prep courses, Udemy, Treehouse, etc.) Mobile apps (examples: Mimo, Lrn) Bootcamps Community programs (Meetup groups, Facebook, etc.) University / school courses Programmi

In this episode I’ll explain how you can achieve financial independence, and why I’ve chosen to do it. It’s not just about sitting on the beach! Here are some places you can read more about FI: The Mad FIentist: The Perfect Life Mr. Money Mustache: The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement Mr. Money Mustache: How To Go From Middle-Class To Kickass   And here's Dave Ramsay's article about me and my friend Einstein (well, you know what I mean!): How Teen's Can Become Millionaires  

In this episode I’ll help you figure out where to start once you’ve decided to learn to code or be a programmer. Some of the resources I mentioned in the episode can be found at these links: The Complete Guide To Everything: What Is the Best Programming Language to Learn First? (YouTube, 19 mins) LearnCode.Academy: 2016/2017 MUST-KNOW WEB DEVELOPMENT TECH (YouTube, 23 mins) Or just click around the map via this link.  

In this episode I’ll define financial independence, and tell you why I think learning to code can get you there.   To read more about what FI is, you can check out the blogs I mentioned in the show: Optimal Finance Daily Episode 224: Financial Independence in Plain English by J.D. Roth (and here's the link to the original post by JD Roth) Mr. Money Mustache: The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement

It’s the first episode! I’ll introduce you to the Start Over Coder podcast: what is it, and what can you expect going forward?