Never Stop Learning
The Internet has transformed education for the better. Below are some of my favorite sites for learning about technology and developing our skills.
Coding
Website: DataQuest
DataQuest is focused on data science, but the skills that can be learned here exist beyond that scope.
There’s also DataCamp, but I prefer DataQuest.
Website: Exercism
There are so, so many sites that promise to help you master coding.
Out of all of the ones that I’ve used, Exercism is by far the best. First off, it’s free. Seriously. There’s no catch. It relies on donations. If you like the site, consider donating. It’s also a non-profit, so it’s not like it’s making money off of ads, because it’s ad-free. This site is the best.
Website: LeetCode
Once you become more fluent in a programming language, LeetCode is a great place to practice your skills. There’s a focus on efficiency. Don’t think that just because your solution works, the quest ends there. You can then work on optimizing it so that it runs more quickly. It’s mostly advanced stuff that may not appeal to most of us, but I’d recommend checking it out.
Website: System Design School
This is a really cool platform. The focus is not on learning how to code or how to optimize a functional piece of code to accomplish a specified task, but more on how to design entire solutions. For anyone wanting to get into cloud engineering and DevOps, this is a good resource.
Website: W3 Schools
When I first checked them out about a decade ago, it was mostly just for front-end development. That’s no longer the case.
This was a very helpful resource that I used often when building this website. I also want to shout out GeeksForGeeks as they were also extremely helpful.
They also offer certifications that go along with their courses, but I don’t think that their certifications carry very much weight in the industry.
Cybersecurity
Websites: AppSecEngineer and Semgrep Academy
Both of these are more focused on building secure software. I would recommend these for anyone who wants to be a cybersecurity professional.
Semgrep Academy is entirely free, which is always awesome. If you’re familiar with WeHackPurple, Semgrep is the company that acquired it.
Websites: Hack The Box and TryHackMe
As far as I know, these are the two biggest cybersecurity training platforms today. They’re interactive, innovative, and effective at training people to become cybersecurity professionals.
Generally, I have heard that TryHackMe is more friendly towards newer students while Hack The Box is going to offer a better challenge for more seasoned students.
I also recently discovered LetsDefend which seems to be promising. I’m kind of put off by the typo in their name, but that’s okay!
DevOps References
Website: 12-Factor App
This is a methodology that was created by an engineering team at Heroku. Many modern software companies employ something almost identical to this with their services. This is helpful to know for anyone in DevOps where the expectation is that we understand the basic functionality and design of the application systems that we would support.
Website: DevSecOps Periodic Table
This is the coolest thing to me. If you want to become a DevOps engineer, be familiar with the solutions and services mentioned here.
Other Learning Platforms
Website: edX
Mostly focused on bringing university courses to the Internet, this is a good resource for learning computer science. I believe the focus is more on the theory and not as much on the practical application of computer programming. That being said, knowing theory is as foundational as it gets.
Website: Khan Academy
I’ve linked specifically the computing section of their site, but Khan Academy is great for just about anything.
Khan Academy is also entirely free, and is sustained by donations. Please donate if you can.
Website: LinkedIn Learning
There are many, many sites that teach everything under the sun when it comes to IT. Pluralsight, Udacity, O’Reilly, CBTNuggets, and so on. All of them are great, but LinkedIn Learning has the best value in my opinion. You get LinkedIn Learning along with LinkedIn Premium, which is going to be really helpful for networking and applying to jobs.
Website: OpenStax
OpenStax and Rice University are committed to making college textbooks affordable. And by affordable, they mean free. Above is a link to their selection of computer science materials.
Website: Udemy
This is not about the platform but about the individual educators that use Udemy to host their materials.
I want to especially shout out Krista King for learning math and Stephane Maarek for learning AWS.
Website: Whizlabs
I’ve not used this personally, but I’ve read great things about their platform!
Expect More Later
I plan on updating this page every time I come across another helpful learning platform or resource. If you have some recommendations, please reach out!