13 amazing websites for Web Developers to acquire coding skills

Gone are the days when only mastered programmers such as Billionaire Bill Gates could use programming languages, while everyone now could hold the same potential of learning and mastering them. 

However, learning how to code is not just a piece of cake! It is related to complicated setups and black, cold command prompts that make you want to quit even before you start.

To alleviate your difficulty in your career as a coder, we are pleased to introduce 10 interactive websites below. Say hi to 10 educational websites teaching you programming languages like HTML, CSS, PHP, Ruby, and even iOS!

1. Udacity

The educational program on Udacity is considered to be lively and interactive for students. This website provides informational video lectures and improved quizzes that could drag learners’ engagement. Specifically, learners will be given a screencast of experts’ discussion about the topics and instructions, then the logic or programming quizzes will be used to strengthen understanding or forge theories into skills.

The strong points of Udacity are the mass number of videos it contains and the instructors who are real-life professors and veterans of the industry.

The sole pitfall here is the content inconsistency among most courses. So, if you long for a program requiring relevance of lessons, Udacity is probably not your starting point, but a virtual university to further your study.

2. Codecademy

With an amazing interface plus well-structured courses, it is not exaggerated to say that Codecademy is the most popular website teaching coding skills. 

All you need to do is just visit the main page, where you can start experiencing the programming thanks to its on-screen panel. Thereafter, you will pick a course that Codecademy offers from Web Fundamentals, PHP, JavaScript, jQuery, Python, Ruby, and APIs.

There is a panel inside each lesson giving explanations on necessary code and instructions. Another panel gives you a chance to write acceptable code and check if you are doing right or wrong. You shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes, as both instruction and code panels will warn you of errors, and provide hints. This web plays as a kind teacher always accompanying you all the time.

3. Code Avengers

You would fall in love with programming if you try this web. The educational system contains HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and Python as well as web design and development courses. Each course is designed to make sure learners truly feel entertained while leveling their programming skills free from pressure and pain. At the end of each lesson, a minigame is held to help you release stress and motivate your spirit.

To assess the website, Code Avengers has a gradual approach to interactive learning without putting much pressure on beginners. This is expressed through the way it does not provide too much inessential knowledge at first, except for a bit of code and playful instruction, making things easier to digest.

You can also play with the code, then see the impact of the changes immediately. This code is carefully created with the beginner’s comfort in mind.

4. Plural Sight

To further enhance your capabilities after tasting Codecademy and Code Avengers, Plural Sight is the next website you should land on. Unlike most interactive learning sites, Plural Sight offers more in-depth courses to train and forge you to become an expert in the industry. 

This website provides satisfactory courses with impressive design and informative screencasts. However, the challenges asked at the end of the screencast might be a bit demanding for amateurs. Luckily, hints and answers are provided to guide users to find the answer. Moreover, not all courses are free. There are some courses (just a small quantity) requiring a paid subscription to use the entire course.

5. Treehouse

All courses on this website tend to be more project-oriented than language-oriented, which could attract a lot of novice programmers with a planned purpose, such as building a website, or an application. 

Specifically, the course’s topics are all about how to build a responsive and interactive website or even a WordPress theme. They also have released a vast number of foundation courses with a video-then-quiz approach.

In every course, there are different stages or modules, and beyond every first stage, the learner will be invited to pay a $25 monthly subscription fee for all courses with 650+ videos, and an exclusive Treehouse Members Forum as a bonus.

For a serious dream about a bright programming future, you should subscribe to the $49 monthly plan to achieve thorough interviews with leading industry experts and pioneering workshops.

6. CodeHS

Besides the above websites teaching about web development and computer science, CodeHS provides simple and fun game programming lessons including problem-solving, JavaScript, animation, data structures, game design, and puzzle challenges.

The advantage of CodeHS is that it teaches you to think and solve a problem like a programmer with its first course, Programming with Karel.

The fantastic features of the courses are the way you learn how to use the code to move the dog or complete given tasks and puzzles like picking up a ball and building a towel. In brief, it plants a solid concept of programming and provides knowledge on solving problems systematically.

Other than the course mentioned above, you must sign up for a monthly subscription to continue your learning journey, but it will be worth your money because you can learn basic game programming effectively there.

7. Khan Academy

Not being as well-structured as CodeHS, Khan Academy outstandingly serve as an open playground for both novice and amateurs with passions for drawing, animation, and user interaction with code.

It does not teach any specific programming language, but the code pattern it provides can be flexibly applied because the same programming pattern is used in almost all languages.

To start learning basic concepts, you can join the Programming Basics course, then explore the given code after the video tutorial to verify its accuracy.

After finishing the modification, you can save it as a Spin-off for other people to enjoy and customize.

With Khan Academy, you can save your modification as a Spin-Off for everyone to enjoy and customize.

There have been hundreds of spin-offs just from one lesson in one course, so imagine the community size and the lesson’s effectiveness.

8. SQLZOO

Structured Query Language (SQL) is just a language purely designed to store and retrieve data from a database, so imagine the boredom you will experience when programming a warehouse. Yet SQLZOO wants you to learn SQL happily with its interactive interface and smileys.

Since there is really nothing too deep to explain for a straightforward language like SQL, the site will only ask you to replace the variables like city names or population number, and raise the difficulty from that level.

One huge let-down will be the shortage of hints, answers and forum, so you are probably doomed if you fail to solve any one of the quizzes, just like old times.

9. Frontend Masters

FrontendMasters, as the name implies, mainly focuses on the front-end programming course such JavaScript and SVG as well as the frameworks like Vue.js, React.js, Ember.js.

FrontendMasters delivers a new concept in programming courses. Each course a workshop delivered by experts from notable companies such as Microsoft, Adobe, Twillio, Paypal, and LinkedIn. If you’re interested to attend the workshop, you can attend it online or in person in Downtown Minneapolis. This makes FrontendMasters stand-out from the rest as the course feels more alive. You can see the instructors and their interaction with the audience. 

10. EggHead

EggHead course collection is pretty vast ranging from the most basic of the language or framework to the most advanced techniques. Some of the courses are free such as The Beginner’s Guide to React and Getting Started with Redux presented Dan Abramov which is in itself is the React.js core developer.

EggHead often delivers the latest programming practices, tools, and languages into their course quicker than any other course channel which makes it a popular channel for developers within the industry to update with their programming skills and practices.

11. TutsPlus

TutsPlus course collection is vast. Aside of teaching programming languages like PHP, JavaScript, and Node.js, you can also learn about design, photo and video editing, drawing illustration, and business. It’s a perfect channel if you’re interested multiple discipline than just programming.

12. SymfonyCasts

This is a course channel specializing in Symfony. Symfony is a PHP framework or ecosystem that produces a bunch of popular PHP packages, tools and certifications. The course contains the very basic of the PHP language, Symfony itself, and some advanced PHP development techniques such as OOP, so called Acceptance Testting, and security.

I think, if you are serious about a future with PHP language or specifically in Symfony, SymfonyCasts might be a top choice for your study.

Summary

Here’s a comparison chart for you to get a bird’s eye view of all these awesome places to learn how to code.

Have you studied any websites we showcased above? How’s the experience? Or have we missed certain interactive learning sites with rich assets for budding programmers? Let us share our experiences and resources to help and inspire each other then!