Hello there,
I have jumped into software development in 2021 and before taking a 100% time commitment engagement to learn how to code, I’ve decided to test my interests in coding through a few websites and programs.

Here is my honest review of what I tried including the pros and cons of each of the platforms.

My top 3 platforms :

1. edX

It's a mix of videos, reading, and exercises! I thought the lesson was very well explained. Huge pros: They were putting a strong basis t to learn coding by explaining the WHY we write code like this and detailed explanations regarding the subtleties of the code to make it easier to build on that later.

You have the choice to take the free path or the paid one to get a verified certificate. It's few hours a week with milestones to achieve. You'll have access to the course and platform for a length of time (+- 6 weeks for e.g.).

Here's the course I took: HTML5 and CSS Fundamentals (free path)
You can find plenty of other computer science courses on edX here.

2. Le Wagon

You have to subscribe to the newsletter of Le Wagon! You'll have access to plenty of free events and workshops. Discover their webinars here (+ subscribe to the newsletter at the bottom of the page). Small hack: change the campus (eg. Montreal, London, or else) to have access to more events!

Here are a few e.g. of workshop subjects (every session is about 3 hours - Including the practice time with exercises on their platform at the end), So if you decide to attend one of the workshops, you'll have a course of about (+-1 or 2 hours):

• Free Workshop Web dev Academy (HTML,CSS, JS) (2 hours for 3 days in one week)
• Learn how to query databases with SQL (1 hour)
• Learn how to automate tasks with APIs (1.5 hours)
• Data Analytics with Python (2 hours)

(p.s. I took all of these to have them on my platform)

Small hack if you don't have time to watch the whole session: Just login and let it run to get the link at the end of the course to practice & learn on Le Wagon free platform. Huge pros: After each webinar, you have LIFETIME access to Le Wagon free platform to do exercises and have access to the recorded session. I just really like the concept of this and you can go at your pace! + login with the same account each time and many courses build up and you have a full book of classes under your name! GREAT!

3. Codeacademy

The is such a large variety of courses to do at your own pace, so no deadlines! You'll create your profile to have access to plenty of courses and track your progress.

Pros: I thought the interactive interface with the console is amazing! Having everything on the same screen is just great! As the concept is like to follow a book, you have your progress at the bottom of each page, so it's a little motivator to add!

Cons: My only complaint would be that there are no videos. So it's only reading + exercises, and to be honest, I didn't find the reading very well explain (like edX). It was more a lot of short reading and plenty of exercises, so I thought it was missing context for me to really understand what I was coding.

Here's the course I took: Learn Ruby. They also have plenty of other courses here.