Welcome to part 5 of how I learned programming. In my last post, I wrote about how I got into web development and what problems I encountered while learning. You can find this post here.
In this post I will talk about how I teach myself new technologies and programming related topics at home using Pluralsight, Youtube and books.
Youtube
Youtube is great. There are videos on every imaginable topic and it’s free. The only downside I see with Youtube is that the quality of the videos is very different. It might take some time to find channels which produce high quality videos and which you like.
Pluralsight
Pluralsight is an online video learning platform with thousands of high quality videos and in my eyes the best source for studying. The advantage over Youtube is that all the videos are reviewed and only high quality content is uploaded. You also have the chance to ask questions to the videos and can download the slides and source code, used in the videos.
The only downside is that it’s not free. The costs are 29$ monthly or 299$ yearly. In my eyes, it is totally worth it and every developer should have an account there. If you have a MSDN subscription you get some free access to Pluralsight, depending on your subscription. Visual Studio Professional grants you access up to 30 courses per year. The Enterprise edition gives you unlimited access to all courses for a year.
Books
Not everyone likes reading books but I highly recommend you doing it. There are some must have read books in my eyes like “Clean Code” from Uncle Bob or “Test-Driven Development by Example” from Kent Beck. I like reading books on the train or during cardio in the gym. Sometimes I also like eBooks because it’s so easy to copy code examples and try them myself.
I know that books are not cheap but it’s really important to invest in yourself and stay up to date with new technologies.
Try it out
Sometimes it’s also nice to sit down and just play around with something new. This way I learned my way around the Azure Portal. Sometimes you don’t know anything about a new technology and therefore it’s nice to learn the basics before diving into it. I have to admit that I barely just dive into something without any tutorial or videos.
That’s the story of how I learned programming. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or leave a comment below.
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