Learning programming with The Odin Project
Do you feel the viking spirits calling you ?
Do you want to kiss the seven seas along on your drakkar ?
If so, join me on The Odin Project.
A few months ago, I decided to learn programming. I was fixing an old valve radio, and I thought I could add an embedded system in it to catch internet stations. I did some research, and I believed I should write the program myself instead of copying an existing one on internet. This was certainly a big step.
This project made me enter the programming world. And as I like traveling, I wanted to see other areas. Interested by web development, I had a look a some websites that teach web languages. And I chose The Odin Project.
The Odin Project is an open source website dedicated to providing free online training, to anyone interested by web development.
The curriculum is the following one:
- Introduction to web development
- Web development 101
- Ruby programming
- Ruby on Rails
- HTML5 and CSS3
- Javascript and jQuery
- Getting hired as a web developer
What I like in the Odin Project, is that it actually sends you to the best websites to learn what you need to learn. It’s a kind of guided directory with some project breaks.
For instance, in the “Web development 101” chapter, that is simply a chapter where you learn the basics of all the languages you will learn later, there is a part on Javascript. And here is the assignment:
- Do Codecademy's Javascript sections 1-5, to get the basics
- Play with some in-browser IDE like jsfiddle.net or Codecademy Labs to have to real sense of what Javascript can do
- Use it to solve logical problems from Project Euler
And that’s all. You will learn deeper Javascript in another chapter.
That really works with me. The Odin Project shows me where to go, and I get to know some other really cool websites, like Codecademy or Project Euler.
Right now, I’m still in the “web development 101 chapter”. I just finished the front-end section and I’m gonna start the Ruby part. I don’t know how long this project will take, but I feel very excited and motivated, so let’s keep it up !