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Ask HN: What's a good online course for beginning programming?

3 points by kyriakos ↗ HN
I have a friend from a designer background who is very experienced in HTML and CSS who wants to learn Javascript primarily for front-end/browser. She looked at some Jarascript tutorials but they all assume you have some programming foundations to start with (i.e. know OO etc). Can you recommend an online course (free or paid) that will help in this case? It doesn't need to be 100% Javascript oriented but it would be a plus.

3 comments

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brudgers
Personally, because of the quirks and complexities and shear volume of javascript material and the amount that practice has changed while the web has not (e.g. jquery was the way, now react or maybe react native), I'd not recommend Javascript as a way for a person to step into learning to program.

In particular, for someone who knows some HTML and CSS but is struggling with Javascript, it seems that Javascript is not the right fit.

Not Javascript:

A more academic CS approach in a MOOC: https://www.edx.org/course/how-code-systematic-program-desig...

The related book: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/

A programmed learning approach: https://learnpythonthehardway.org/

Something a bit more opinionated that involves Emacs: https://aphyr.com/posts/301-clojure-from-the-ground-up-welco...

From the realm of the wierd: http://poignant.guide/

A good book that sort of changed the way programming books are written (other Head First Books are also good): http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfjava/

kyriakos
I was thinking the same that JavaScript might not be a very suitable as a starting point. Maybe a more traditional language would fit the bill.