I had never heard of Udacity before, but a professor at my university suggested it on his website. The class he teaches is a web application course that I'm planning on taking when I can manage to fit it into my schedule, but for now I decided to take his advice.

The class on Udactity that he suggested is called CS253: Web Application Engineering, and is taught by Steve Huffman (the guy that created Reddit). And while some previous programming experience is suggested, it doesn't seem like any previous experience with Python is all that necessary. He does a good job explaining everything that he does.

Then another class that people on the suggestion board for 253 suggested, was CS101: Building a Search Engine. This is for people who have never programmed before. It starts off very basic, and works with Python so it would be a great course to take if you want to learn how to program in Python, or if you want to learn about programming in general.

The great thing about these courses is that, while they do have graded homework and quizzes, you can submit as many answers as you want until you get it right. It's not about being graded. The quizzes and homework only provide you with a way to interact with the lesson and see how well you're learning the material (or to ask you about something that hasn't been taught yet, so they can explain the correct answer). They also upload the videos onto the website and don't have any real due dates for the homework. So the course can be taken whenever you have the time.

So I thought that these were pretty good resources for anyone who might be interested in learning any kind of programming. I figured I'd share them here.

Udacity, huh thats a cool word. Taking a Udacity class? thats weird.

Klutch :

Uh... alright. I guess taking classes on Udacity is out of the ordinary, but I wouldn't say that it's weird.

And yeah, I am taking both classes myself. I've gone through both units that have been uploaded for the 253 class, and I'm about a unit and a half into the 101 course. I'm taking them both at the same time because I have enough experience in Python to hold my own in the 253 class, but I could still stand to learn more about it.

Wow, this is awesome, I've heard that Python is pretty easy to get into, but the only thing I know about it is

import antigravity

I'll have to look into this, because my site could certainly use a search feature!

import antigravity

Lazlo Falconi :

They reference that comic in a few of the videos. And yeah, Python is relatively simple to get started with, and I haven't noticed anything that isn't really all that straightforward. They start with the absolute basics and slowly work their way up. The only problem I have with Python is its use of tabs instead of enclosing things with the curly brackets. Only because some text editors can mess things up, or using tab instead of spaces can sometimes mess up

And since you're gonna want to write your own programs (I'm assuming your on a Windows 7 machine), then I suggest using PyDev with Eclipse (I'd suggest just downloading Eclipse from Ninite). You'll also need to download Python if you want to do that..

The course provide you with an interpreter that can be used from the class's website, but if you want to do something with the code on your own website then Eclipse will definitely make your life easier. And honestly I suggest trying to write out some of the code when he creates his own procedures, and running it in your own program. Just note that when he uses his get_page(string) procedure with a URL as an input, that's his own procedure. He doesn't really explain that, and it might not be obvious until a while after he first uses it.

Anyway, I've been going back and forth between writing this and working and now it's 4 AM. So some of what I post might not make sense. But do let me know if you have any questions about the course, getting everything set up, or Python in general. I'll try to help as best I can.

soxfan849 : That all made sense, except the part where you "assume" I'm using Windows 7. I have not been using Windows 7 since I joined Vizzed, because I was on 8 when I first got here, and I've been using solely LMDE for a while now.

But I don't know when I'll be able to look into all of this, as I'm going to be in the field all next week without a computer, and I have very little free time anyway. Hopefully not too long, though.

Lazlo Falconi :

Hm, then I assume you already have Python (I'm not very good at this assuming thing, though, so I could be wrong). And honestly I think I would just program in Vi and then run it in the terminal. But if you want something to point out any syntax errors as you're programming instead of after running a program, then I still suggest getting Eclipse.

Anyway, it doesn't look like these classes are going anywhere. They seem to be specifically designed for people who want to learn how to program, but don't have a lot of free time. So there's definitely no rush. Which is perhaps the best part of the whole thing.