Last week I wrote about the benefits of working on programming fluency. But before a programmer can work on fluency, they need to learn to program in the first place. Until recently, prospective programmers had to go through a complicated setup process to get their compiler and environment up and running. There’s something to be learned from that process, but it can be a stumbling block for beginners. These days, it’s possible to skip that initial setup process completely. Over the last few years, dozens of sites have sprung up to teach programming in the browser. You can open a web site, and write your first line of code in a few seconds. Free options include Codecademy, Khan Academy Computer Programming, Code.org, and numerous others. There are also paid sites like CodeSchool and Treehouse. For a more do-it-yourself approach, or for those following a tutorial in a book, there are online compilers such as Coding Ground (formerly CompileOnline) and Ideone. You can find many more of these by searching online compiler. Online compilers are less likely to have built-in tutorials, but they do allow programmers to skip the compiler setup step, or write a quick program from someone else’s computer.
