Do Yourself A Favor. Learn To Code. Here's How.

Do yourself a favor. Learn to code. Here's how.

I’ve said this to my non-techie friends countless times. It’s no secret that being able to code makes you a better job applicant, and a better entrepreneur. Hell, one techie taught a homeless man to code and now that man is making his first mobile application.

Learning to code elevates your professional life, and makes you more knowledgeable about the massive changes taking place in the technology sector that are poised to have an immense influence on human life.

(note: yes I realize that 3/5 of those links were Google projects)

But most folks are intimidated by coding. And it does seem intimidating at first. But peel away the obscurity and the difficulty, and you start to learn that coding, at least at its basic level, is a very manageable, learnable skill.

There are a lot of resources out there to teach you. I’ve found a couple to be particularly successful. Here’s my list of resources for learning to code, sorted by difficulty:

Novice

Never written a line of code before? No worries. Just visit one of these fine resources and follow their high-level tutorials. You won’t get into the nitty-gritty, but don’t worry about it for now:

Dash - by General Assembly

CodeAcademy

w3 Tutorials (start at HTML on the left sidebar and work your way down)

Intermediate

Now that you’ve gone through a handful of basic tutorials, it’s time to learn the fundamentals of actual, real-life coding problems. I’ve found these resources to be solid:

Khan Academy

CodeAcademy - Ruby, Python, PHP

Difficult

If you’re here, you’re capable of building things. You know the primitives. You know the logic control statements. You’re ready to start making real stuff take shape. Here are some different types of resources to turn you from someone who knows how to code, into a full-fledged programmer.

Programming problems

Sometimes, the challenges in programming aren’t how to make a language do a task, but just how to do the task in general. Like how to find an item in a very large, sorted list, without checking each element. Here are some resources for those types of problems

Talentbuddy

TopCoder

Web Applications

If you learned Python, Django is an amazing platform for creating quick-and-easy web applications. I’d highly suggest the tutorial - it’s one of the best I’ve ever used, and you have a web app up and running in less than an hour.

Django Tutorial

I’ve never used Rails, but it’s a very popular and powerful framework for creating web applications using Ruby. I’d suggest going through their guide to start getting down-and-dirty with Rails development.

Rails Guide

If you know PHP, there’s an ocean of good stuff out there for you to learn how to make a full-fledged web application. Frameworks do a lot of work for you, and provide quick and easy guides to get up and running. I’d suggest the following:

Cake PHP Book

Symfony 2 - Get Started

Yii PHP - The Comprehensive Guide

Conclusion

If there’s one point I wanted to get across, it’s that it is easier than ever to learn to code. There are resources on every corner of the internet for potential programmers, and the benefits of learning even just the basics are monumental.

If you know of any additional, great resources that aren’t listed here, please feel free to tweet them to me @boomeyer.

Best of luck!

More Posts from Solarpiracy and Others

2 years ago
It’s Never Too Late To Learn The Right Way To Do Things: Button Sewing Technique Via Imgur → More…

It’s never too late to learn the right way to do things: button sewing technique via imgur → more…

4 years ago
Please Take Action And Sign The Following Petitions:
Please Take Action And Sign The Following Petitions:
Please Take Action And Sign The Following Petitions:
Please Take Action And Sign The Following Petitions:
Please Take Action And Sign The Following Petitions:
Please Take Action And Sign The Following Petitions:
Please Take Action And Sign The Following Petitions:
Please Take Action And Sign The Following Petitions:
Please Take Action And Sign The Following Petitions:
Please Take Action And Sign The Following Petitions:

Please take action and sign the following petitions:

Petition 🇺🇸 Secretary of State to #SaveSheikhJarrah

Lobby 🇬🇧 UK Foreign Office to #SaveSheikhJarrah

Petition 🇺🇸 Congress to #SaveSheikhJarrah

Source:  LET’S TALK PALESTINE

1 month ago
Inside the U.S. Government-Bought Tool That Can Track Phones at Abortion Clinics
404 Media
Privacy advocates gained access to a powerful tool bought by U.S. law enforcement agencies that can track smartphone locations around the wo
The tool, called Locate X and made by a company called Babel Street, then narrows down to the movements of a specific device which had visited the clinic. This phone started at a residence in Alabama in mid-June. It then went by a Lowe’s Home Improvement store, traveled along a highway, went past a gas station, visited a church, crossed over into Florida, and then stopped at the abortion clinic for approximately two hours. They had only been to the clinic once, according to the data. 
In other words, someone had traveled from Alabama, where abortion is illegal after the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, to an abortion clinic in Florida, where abortion is limited but still available early in a pregnancy. Based on the data alone, it is unclear who exactly this person is or what they were doing, whether they were receiving an abortion themselves, assisting someone seeking one, or going to the clinic for another reason. But it would be trivial for U.S. authorities, some of which already have access to this tool, to go one step further and unmask this or other abortion clinic visitors. 
This sort of surveillance is only possible because of the mobile advertising ecosystem. Location data is sometimes used to build profiles on device users and better target advertisements to them. Much of that advertising relies on a MAID, the unique advertising ID, on a phone. The MAID acts as the digital glue between a device and its associated data.

anyway yeah DELETE YOUR FUCKING ADVERTISING IDS

Android:

Settings ➡️ Google ➡️ all services ➡️ Ads ➡️ Delete advertising ID

(may differ slightly depending on android version and manufacturer firmware. you can't just search settings for "advertising ID" of course 🔪)

iOS:

Settings ➡️ privacy ➡️ tracking ➡️ toggle "allow apps to request to track" to OFF

and ALSO settings ➡️ privacy ➡️ Apple advertising ➡️ toggle "personalized ads" to OFF

more details about the process here via the EFF

1 year ago

🐑 ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 🐑

As Eid Al Adha is falling on the last few days of Pride Month this year, Eid Mubarak to all the lgbtq+ Muslims.

Remember that your queerness and diversity is a miracle from Allah SWT and that you were created perfect.

Whether you are celebrating alone, celebrating with family, celebrating with friends, or not celebrating at all, I hope this Eid Al Adha finds you all safe and at peace inshallah.

🐑 ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 🐑

3 years ago
The Resurgence of Waffle Gardens Is Helping Indigenous Farmers Grow Food with Less Water
In the face of climate change and persistent droughts, a growing number of people from Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico and elsewhere are adopting the traditional farming practice.

For the past 64 years, Jim Enote has planted a waffle garden, sunken garden beds enclosed by clay-heavy walls that he learned to build from his grandmother. This year, he planted onions and chiles, which he waters from a nearby stream. It’s an Indigenous farming tradition suited for the semi-arid, high-altitude desert of the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico, where waffle gardens have long flourished and Enote has farmed since childhood.

“They are the inverse of raised beds, and for an area where it is more arid, they’re actually very efficient at conserving water,” said Enote, who leads the Colorado Plateau Foundation to protect Indigenous land, traditions, and water. Each interior cell of the waffle covers about a square foot of land, just below ground-level, and the raised, mounded earthen walls are designed to help keep moisture in the soil.

Similar sunken beds for growing food with less water have been used globally in arid regions, arising independently by Indigenous farmers, including across distinct Pueblo tribes in the Southwest. “When you have ecological equivalents you often have cultural equivalents,” said Enote. As climate change deepens, he sees this tradition as one of many ways to adapt while building food security and sovereignty.

1 year ago
Ok Cosplayers, It Has Come To My Attention That A Lot Of You Don’t Know What This Stuff Is. Sit Down

Ok cosplayers, it has come to my attention that a lot of you don’t know what this stuff is. Sit down and let me learn you a thing. This stuff here is called Frog Juice (there’s no real frogs in it). It’s originally for stuff like vinyl signs (my dad owns a sign company, so I grew up with this stuff), but it’s even more useful for a wide range of cosplay stuff. 

Since it’s designed to protect outdoor vinyl signs, it can do a whole hell of a lot. It dries super fast (three minutes until it isn’t tacky) and shiny, so it’s perfect for anything that’s supposed to look like metal, ice, gems, etc. It’s incredibly strong and weatherproofs your stuff against ANYTHING, rain, snow, UV rays (so it doesn’t fade in sunshine), sleet, hail, whatever. It’s flexible too, so your foam will still bend and move with you without cracking. Not only that, but since it’s an aerosol, you can’t miss patches and it leaves no brush strokes, and it goes on so thin you can’t see it’s there. It doesn’t smudge, smear, scratch, or leave fingerprints, so your stuff can go a whole weekend at a con and still look brand new. 

The kicker? It’s cheap, and a can will last you forever. I kidnapped this one brand new from my dad, and I’ve so far used it (in double coats, which is unnecessary, but I like to be on the safe side) on a full set of armour, three pairs of bracers, a top hat, pauldrens, two bows, and a pair of greaves. And there’s still plenty in the can. Did I mention it can also be used to seal foam in a single, flexible coat that can then be painted over, so you don’t have to spend two days messing with glue and whatnot?

TL;DR - If you need a foam sealer, a top coat, weatherproofing, or any kind of shiny finisher, GET SOME FUCKING FROG JUICE (the brand I use can be purchased here: http://www.signwarehouse.com/FL-CC-p-FL-FROG-12Z.html)


Tags
4 years ago
Tribes Revive Traditional Hemp Economies
A post-petroleum transition plan.

“With 10,000 uses, hemp is one of the most versatile plants to grow—and in many ways can be a catalyst for change for Native peoples. We see a New Green Revolution in Indian Country, tied to justice, economics, restoration ecology, and a return-to-the-land movement, and it’s growing.

Just last year, the Fort Berthold Reservation, Colorado River tribes, Iowa Tribe (Kansas and Nebraska), Yurok, Sisseton and Santee Dakotas, to name a few, all got their hemp plans approved by the USDA, but more than that, tribal growers and thinkers are considering hemp as part of the future for Indian Country. And young leaders such as Muriel Young Bear, a Meskwaki woman from Iowa, and Marcus Grignon—a Menominee and project director at Hempstead Project HEART, a John Trudell initiative—represent a new wave of commitment.”

3 years ago

decolonizepalestine.com is an easy to navigate website run by two palestinians which breaks down common myths about palestine and provides a reading list organized by a wide variety of categories ranging from history and culture to media and censorship. it’s a good starting point to use if you want to learn more about the modern day situation in palestine and understand the truth behind myths that have been perpetuated about israel’s occupation of palestine.

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solarpiracy - SolarPiracy
SolarPiracy

a repository of information, tools, civil disobedience, gardening to feed your neighbors, as well as punk-aesthetics. the revolution is an unending task: joyous, broken, and sublime

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