In this day and age, everyone is trying to learn how to code. Between a 27% increase in job outlook (through 2024) and everything becoming automated, having programming know-how has never been more valuable. From a professional standpoint, you increase your value by knowing how to program, as companies are realizing the benefits of having their employees know how to manipulate basic code. From a personal standpoint, you gain the ability to make side projects become a reality.

While there are plenty of benefits to learning how to code, we’ve noticed there isn’t a clear roadmap for getting there. The majority of what’s out there only covers the basics or requires payment.

Below we list what we believe to be the best bang-for-buck resources available.

Beginner

Rithm’s Free Courses

• We firmly believe our free courses are the best out there, not only teaching you the fundamentals, but also challenging and guiding you to begin thinking like a programmer. At the end of every section there are questions for you to assess whether you truly understand what you’ve just learned.

• We do require an email, but other than that everything here is completely free. Feel free to reach out if you have questions, we’re always willing and available!

• Our intermediate courses ramp up nicely, prepping you perfectly for…

Intermediate

Eloquent JavaScript

• One of our favorites. There’s a reason everyone suggests EloJS: it begins to teach you “real” programming. While it is fairly difficult to dive straight into, if you have a solid grasp on the fundamentals you should find the jump to EloJS challenging, but not headache-inducing. The main struggle is understanding the language used.

• This stage will wrack your brain much more, but if you achieve a solid understanding of the concepts in this book your potential JS ability will skyrocket (will touch on this further down).

Advanced

Secrets of a JavaScript Ninja

• Heavy lifting, technical, and difficult. This is for elevating your skills to the next step. You do have to purchase it, but we believe this is one of the best books for advanced JS. We’d advise checking this out early on, but not to dive into it until you feel very comfortable with EloJS and have several projects under your belt.

Supplemental

CodeWars

• CodeWars offers a ton of fun code puzzles (called “katas”) with which you can gauge your ability. Once you find a solution, it shows you what other people have done so you can see how others approached the problem. The best part is that you can always revisit old answers and marvel at how far you’ve come (or cringe at your old answer)!

Meetups

• Fantastic way to get into the community, make friends, and bounce ideas/get feedback on concepts you’re struggling with. Not to plug, but we host a free study session at Rithm every Tuesday. Drop in!

Libraries/Frameworks

React

• Facebook is behind it, it’s ever-growing in popularity, and it’s simpler to get started with compared to Angular because there isn’t as much going on. The community is large, the support is amazing, and there is no downside to learning it.

Angular

• The learning curve turns steep very quick due to two way data binding. Essentially, when something changes in Angular code, the DOM automatically gets updated. This is easy at first, but once you start to get into more complicated code (e.g. asynchronous programming), it can get really confusing. However, if you get a grasp on it, the use of directives is awesome and the model-view-viewmodel architectural patterns make complex web apps easier to manage.

Vue

• The new kid on the block, but making big waves. Much easier to learn, easier to read, easier to extend, a simple way to build components… If you're looking for a lightweight front-end framework, it's hard to top Vue.

Let us know if you know of a resource that we haven’t listed! We’re always on the lookout for awesome content.