Four Amazing Websites To Make YOU a Developer in 2023!!!
Here is a short list of websites that will help you become a software developer in 2023.
Not going to lie😅, this year was not the best one for the tech industry with so many people losing their job in the big tech companies and the funding crunch in the startup ecosystem, things were pretty rough for everyone in the industry.
Yet, the number of people learning to code also increased tremendously this year. According to this article from FreeCodeCamp, people have spent more than 4 billion minutes on their learning platform, which is almost double the time people spent in 2021, and this trend is not slowing down in 2023 either.
Even I was among the people who started learning to code and made this blog where I am helping others like me learn to code. Thus, I made a list of all the websites I have used this year in learning to code.
FreeCodeCamp:
Starting with the elephant in the room, freecodecamp. This was the place on the internet where I started my coding journey. Back in March 2022, I started learning HTML, CSS, and Javascript from this website.
On their platform, they have interactive lessons on various web development courses, and one can easily learn both front-end and back-end development with nothing but their free tutorial. During the time of writing, they have lessons in HTML, CSS, Javascript, ReactJS, JQuery, Databases, APIs, and Data Analysis with Python, ML, and AI.
This is the homepage of freeCodeCamp:
They also provide free certificates that can be unlocked by completing five projects at the end of the course, which should work according to the requirements given in the project.
The community is also massive, if you ever get stuck on any of the projects, then the solution is just a google search or a youtube video away, and I also make tutorials on their projects just so you know😅.
Frontendmentor:
If you are also taking the path of Web Development, then this site is just for you. Frontendmentor is a website that provides front-end projects to work with and hone your skills as a front-end developer.
This website would provide you with web designs made by professional web designers. Your job would be to make websites that are as close to the design as possible. This way, you can work on designs that mimic the work of a front-end developer in the industry.
I also use this site and its designs for my developer portfolio. The best thing about this website is that the designs are complex enough that I always have to push my limits to make them look pixel-perfect, learning some new things about front-end development each time, and there are different tiers of designs to choose from.
One can choose hundreds of designs from the NOVICE, BEGINNER, INTERMEDIATE, ADVANCED, and GURU categories. Each category contains designs more complex than the previous one, with the GURU having the best of the lot.
Mozilla Developer Network:
Next is the website that I am sure you have already seen or heard about it from someone who works in the industry. MDN(Mozilla Developer Network) is a technical documentation website that is maintained by Mozilla, Google employees, and volunteers (community of developers and technical writers).
This is the homepage of MDN:
It is a technical documentation site that contains all the information about web technologies, like HTML, CSS, Javascript, NodeJS, ReactJS, Django, etc.
Edx.org:
This website is a collection of many courses in Programming and other professional courses from the best universities in the world. These courses are offered by Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, and other top universities in the world.
This is the homepage of edx:
Let alone certificate courses, you can do full bachelor’s and master’s degrees from any of the universities, and the degree would be the same as someone would get on campus. You can do some courses for free and some of the courses are paid, although the fees are much lower than what it is for students on campus.
There is an amazing free course from the Harvard university which is CS50x: Introduction to Computer Science, it is 11 weeks in which they start with Scratch programming language in week 0, then C language in weeks 1 to 5, then Python in week 6, SQL in week 7, HTML, CSS, and JS in week 8, and then they finish with Django and Flask in week 10.
For each week, there is a recorded video lecture for the topic that is to be done for that week, then there are assignments that are to be completed and after 11 weeks, you are expected to make a project on your own and submit it in the course after which, you will be eligible to get the certificate. Although the course is free, there is a nominal fee for the certificate.
The CS50x may be just an introduction course, but many people have got a job just fresh out of the course, without any prior coding knowledge, which speaks volumes about the quality of the course.
It is one of the hardest online courses in programming, with less than 10% of people being able to complete it and submit the final project.
Conclusion:
So, friends, these were the four websites that I used to learn web development. Sure, there were some other websites that I checked out and used once in a while, but these were the ones I used the most.
I hope you liked these sites and would use them to unlock your potential as a developer. If you know any website that is not present in this list then comment below and also tell me what else you want me to write on.
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I wish you a very happy new year😊.
