Over the past several months I have used Youtube as a primary source of information and education on topics relating to Web Development and coding.  Over time I have branched out to use other sources for learning such as Udemy, books such as a Smarter Way to Learn Javascript by Mark Meyers, Eloquent Javascript by Marijn Haverbeke, Mozilla Developer Network,  w3schools.com and various blogs and podcasts (Career.js and Code Newbie for example), but the trunk of this tree of learning resources has been Youtube, and I discovered all of the other alternative and great learning resources as a result of exploring many different Web Development and coding channels there.  I want to list a few channels that I’ve found the most helpful in case you’re looking for a place to start and don’t know where to begin your coding education.  This is my list of the best coding and web development Youtube channels for beginners and experienced developers alike.

THENEWBOSTON

If you’re looking for a place to start, the channel that I believe is the most helpful for beginners who just want to get their feet wet and see if coding is something they might be interested in is Bucky Robert’s thenewboston channel.   Bucky is known as the ‘Godfather’ of Youtube programming channels since I believe his was one of the first (if not, the first) programming channels to explode in popularity on the Youtube platform.  The channel has many beginner tutorials on a variety of web development topics and many different languages.  The tutorials consist of a collection of bite-sized videos about 5 to 10 minutes in length, which divide the material up into manageable pieces for the beginner.  The style of teaching is very concise and to the point, but casual and also a bit entertaining.   He makes you feel like you’re sitting down with an experienced colleague just quickly showing you the ropes as a beginner, but not in a condescending or impatient way.  I think his tutorials are a great place to start for someone beginning their journey who just wants to see if programming is something they might like or be interested in doing.  I started with his xHTML/CSS tutorial and then moved on to his Javascript for Beginners tutorial.

LEARNCODE.ACADEMY

This is a fantastic channel I discovered recently.   Seriously, once you’ve got your feet wet in programming, just go here and watch and learn…you will not be disappointed.  It’s a good channel for getting into more sophisticated concepts of programming (like techniques for writing cleaner, more efficient code and more).  I love the teaching style used which is extremely to the point and straight forward – there is zero fluff here – just meat and substance.   Tutorials are extremely clear, easy to follow and very efficient and concise.  If you are familiar with DevTips (another well known programming channel run by a professional developer who works for Google), to give you an idea of the quality of content on this channel, he actually watches it to learn from the tutorials.  Lately I’ve been watching the Modular Javascript series, which is a great overview of making your code easier to maintain, debug and read.  Another video of his I discovered recently was an introduction to Machine Learning using Javascript.  I can’t recommend this channel highly enough.  I think it is my favorite Youtube programming channel of all of them.

TRAVERSY MEDIA

Another great channel to check out once you have your feet wet and went through some beginner tutorials is Traversy Media.  I have found that this channel is helpful if you already have a handle on the basics of a particular language and want to get a better idea of how to implement and use the language in a project.  There are crash course videos that quickly go over the main concepts and techniques in a particular language and also quick project builds where Brad Traversy (the channel author) videos himself building a small application using a particular language/framework.  I’ve found those very helpful to watch because they demonstrate how to actually apply what you’ve learned (see this video on how to Build An HTML5 Website With A Responsive Layout).  One of the most helpful videos I watched of his recently was his Web Development in 2018 – A Practical Guide.  He does a series every year on what’s hot in the field and gives you an idea of what you should be studying and putting on your list to learn.

SYLVESTER MORGAN

Sylvester Morgan’s channel is a channel that I’ve discovered recently and added to my list of Youtube resources.  He describes his journey to becoming a developer from relatively humble beginnings and having to deal with self doubt and supporting a family in the middle of a career change.  I’ve found the content to be inspiring and a good look into how someone without a degree in Computer Science or a lot of background in coding can teach themselves what they need to know.  His video, “How I Became A Software Developer Without a Degree” lays out a plan and strategy for deciding what to teach yourself and where to find resources by looking at Computer Science degree curriculum and building a learning plan for yourself.  He is very self disciplined, humble and down to earth and I look forward to watching more of his content.

FUN FUN FUNCTION

If you have Javascript questions, just go here.  This guy is phenomenal and he is a professional developer for Spotify.  He is a good teacher and can break down concepts very well.  In addition to demonstrating the concepts he teaches, he is also concise and the tutorials are usually around ten minutes.   He has a very animated personality, so the material is not presented in a dry manner, but as you would expect from the channel title, is delivered in a ‘fun’ way.  By far this is one of my favorite programming channels on Youtube, and I will be going through the content for a long time to come.

MMTUTS

I’ve found mmtuts’ channel to be useful when looking for a demonstration on how to do a specific task (like setting up a connection to a database in PHP, for example see this video).  His videos are mostly to the point with a bit of entertainment and personality thrown in.  I find myself going to his channel if I’m wanting to see a quick demonstration of how to do something specific, lately dealing with database connections and querying in PHP.

DAVID MAHLER

David Mahler’s channel is also a recent discovery and I’ve found his tutorials on Git and Github to be very helpful and straight-forward (see this one here on Git Branches and Merging).  His teaching style is very dry, but I love it because it is just straight to business and concise without any distracting fluff.  The information is presented clearly and efficiently, which is exactly what I’m looking for in a tutorial.

CODING PHASE

Finally, there is Coding Phase.  The author of the channel generously offers help and support to beginners trying to learn to code and has a ‘no B.S.’ style.  The reason I like this channel is that the author doesn’t sugar coat anything and tries to give the viewer a realistic picture of what the web development industry is like and what it takes to be a developer.  He talks about what you’ll encounter in the real world as an entry level developer and discusses some of the ‘myths’ and controversial topics in the software development industry, such as becoming a developer in a short amount of time, unreasonably high salary expectations for junior developers and whether coding boot-camps are really worth it.  Somehow, all the while, he still manages to be encouraging and positive towards those who are learning and trying to become developers.  I haven’t used his channel as a source of learning yet, but I know he offers some online courses which I’m sure are great.  Right now, I watch his content because I like hearing about a different (and maybe more realistic) perspective on the software/web development industry.  He also does some portfolio reviews of people who are trying to break into the industry, and they will give you a good idea of the level you need to be at (he doesn’t go easy on the reviews, but again is still encouraging).  He has a very useful list of the ‘best’ courses on Udemy for Web Development.  I’ve completed the Javascript: Understanding the Weird Parts course, and it was so good, that I would be willing to  believe it is one of the best courses on JS out there.  His list of best web development courses is:

Ultimate MYSQL Course

Web Developer Bootcamp

JavaScript: Understanding the Weird Parts

ES6 Javascript

Learn React

Angular 5 the complete guide

There are a few other channels I check out, but these have been the most helpful to me and I find myself coming back to them more often.  I think they will be of most help to those looking for a place to start or additional resources to explore and add to their list.  If you want to see all of the channels that I follow, see my Youtube channel here.

I recently finished going through a very good guide to MySQL by Bucky Roberts who is a popular programming teacher on Youtube.  His channel is called thenewboston and I highly recommend checking his tutorials out if you are looking for a good learning resource.  The tutorial was concise and to the point and covered:

• Basic keywords and statements such as SELECT, FROM
• PRIMARY KEY
• Fully Qualified Ids
• Filtering keywords such as WHERE, AND, OR, IN, NOT IN, GROUP BY (can be used with functions), ORDER BY (DESC), and LIMIT
• Wildcards: %, _
• Column Creation using Concat with AS
• Functions such as UPPER(), SQRT()
• Aggregate Functions such as COUNT(), AVG(), SUM(), MAX(), MIN()
•  SUBQUERIES
• Joining Tables using Inner Joins and Outer Joins (LEFT OUTER JOIN, RIGHT OUTER JOIN)
• Unions for getting a single result from multiple queries (UNION)
• Fulltext Searching using ADD FULLTEXT() function with Match() and Against(), IN BOOLEAN MODE using ‘+’ or ‘-‘
• Editing Databases with INSERT INTO and VALUES keywords
• Editing data with UPDATE and SET keywords, as well as DELETE
• Creating Tables with CREATE TABLE and specifying parameters with name, data type, max data storage size and setting the PRIMARY KEY using NOT NULL and AUTO_INCREMENT
• Adding and removing columns with ALTER TABLE, ADD and DROP COLUMN keywords
• Creating Views using CREATE VIEW and Concat() function
• Backing up and restoring Databases using PHPMyAdmin

I really enjoyed learning about MySQL and am hungry for more.  I’m looking forward to  continuing to learn about more advanced topics including Triggers, Cursors and Stored Procedures.  It’s amazing to me how many high quality learning resources are out there on Youtube, Udemy, Codecademy, Freecodecamp.org and all over the internet, a lot of which are low cost or even free.  For someone who is interested in learning all they can, it is truly a playground of knowledge.

If you want to take a look at my notes that I took while going through this tutorial, they are attached here.  The format is basic and it is just a simple text file, but it should give you an idea of what the course covers and it might be useful to you to peruse for review or to get your feet wet with SQL.

MySQL Tutorial Notes

I’ve been listening to some podcasts lately while making some long drives to visit friends and family.  Two of them in particular have proven to be very informative and I’ve learned a few things that I’ve taken note of for future use.

The first podcast is called Careerjs and can be found here.  And another one I’ve been finding helpful is Code Newbie found here.

Careerjs is more Javascript focused, but there are also some helpful podcasts on interviewing and job search/recruiting.   Code Newbie is more general and podcasts include interviews with top experts in various fields including Web Design, Development (incl. CMS, Custom Website and Application Developers) and Web Performance.

Some key takeaways from listening to the podcasts that I’ve filed into the memory bank include:

• Two things that can affect how fast your website loads are: 1) Pic Size and Location (JPG is common, but GIF and PNG are better file types for typical pics that are uploaded to the website.  Storing the pics on the server instead of linking to them externally in the anchor tags by href also allows for faster loading times.   2) FONT PACKAGE SIZE.  Check the size of the font pack(s) you are using.  You should only use a couple, maybe 3 at most on the site to optimize loading times.  Check and compare the size of the pack to other options to minimize the data load.
• When dealing with currency data in applications (i.e. for finance or banking software, etc.), do not use float numbers for the cents amount.  Use integer cents.  Floats are not 100% accurate (applies also when rounded or fixed to two decimal places).  This small inaccuracy can affect yield results when dealing with expressions involving a small number and a much larger number in particular.
• Look for companies that you would like to be a part of and have an interest in and contact them.  Don’t wait for a recruiter to reach you.  A lot of times if you contact a company directly and explain why you’re interested in working for them and what value you can provide to help them, then that goes a long way,
• Go to meetups to develop relationships in person with other coders and potential employers.  It’s very important that people know you in person.

I’ll continue to highlight takeaways and post things I learn from listening to these podcasts that might help others out.  There are many other useful podcasts that I have on my list to get to as well.