I recently stumbled upon two websites for learning coding and programming skills: CodeCombat and Codewars. Both use a free software philosophy (all code examples are open…
Hi Hubert,
glad to hear you liked the article, and congratulation for being an adult learner!
The way from understanding basic syntax to coding meaningful, complex programs is a long one, independent of programming language and learning ideology. For my own (young) students, i use Python and easygui, others have success with diving into html, css and javascript. It depends on what topic fascinates you. What no programming book, game or video can give you is experience; it comes with time, it needs passion.
I reccomend heading to reddit/r/learntocode to discuss learning strategies with others. I also suggest finding a nice, little(?) open-source project at github, something that really fascinate you. Start humble by asking the project admins how you can help out, not necessary with coding: testing, writing documentation, helping to sort issues and answer in the forums, reviewing and commenting code etc. I personally find it very rewarding to go to programmers conferences or user groups meetings. As you get more involved with your pet project and it's people you will learn a lot, mostly by and from others. Focus on your passion!
Thanks for putting this great article under cc-by-sa license! I republished at international open magazine (dot org). http://goo.gl/XK6j8X