Alex Abrahams

I don't know everything about coding, but I do know a lot about where to learn it.

Coding Resources

London Classes and Meet-Ups London Classes and Meet-Ups
  • General Assembly is a global technology education organisation with offices everywhere. They have full-time and part-time courses; classes are twice a week and last for 10 weeks. GA also do some free one-off sessions like their 'Intro to the London Startup Scene' class. Sign up to their mailing list for notifications about their classes and sessions.
  • Steer is where you can do a 5-day immersive on a topic like iOS app development or basic HTML and CSS. They also have a great collection of resources availableon their site.I have done their iOS course and it was great, email me for more info!
  • If you want to go really hardcore, Maker's Academy could be for you. It's a full-time 12 week course designed to take you from coding newbie to full-stack developer. I know someone who did just this, graduating from Oxford with a degree in PPE in 2013 and then did Maker's for 3 months. She is now a developer at a software agency.
  • Coderwave do basic coding courses in West London. The founder, Rosario, did a really nice introduction to HTML, CSS and Ruby for Women Who Code members recently.
  • Decoded promise to teach you how to code in a day. This is the perfect option if your company is offering to pay for it, or if you have close to £1000 in spare change. They have an online step-by-step guide to learning HTML and CSS for free, however. Kathryn Parsons is a cofounder and a general tech powerhouse of London.
Learning Online Learning Online
  • I use Team Treehouse for learning to code online; it has a huge amount of content on everything from iOS and Android development to the web development I am into. I particularly enjoy the competitive side of comparing achievements in the leaderboard! Treehouse works well when you feel like you're never going to make a dent in the amount of stuff there is to learn- you can see exactly how far you are through a topic. Its $25 per month for a regular membership but for students its only $9.
  • There’s also General Assembly’s free Dash platform which I used when I was just getting started. They offer something similar to Codecademy.
  • Don't Fear The Internet have a series of video presentations on topics within basic HTML and CSS. I like their one on the difference between IDs and classes.
  • TechSpot has a list of mini-resources for learning particular areas like Android development, Python and other languages.
Tools for Web Development Tools for Web Development
  • Twitter Bootstrap is your new best friend for getting pretty landing pages made quickly and easily. Its themes are designed to be perfectly responsive and mobile-first. Even better, Bootswatch allows you to just add one line of code to the top of your HTML file to get access to ready-made CSS. I made this website for Eden Bakery using Bootswatch and found it easy to use and customise.
  • CSS Button Generator is a quick tool for getting the right CSS for the button I want.
  • Find what border radius value you actually want with the CSS Border Radius generator.
  • This tool will give you the color you want in terms of ##### values and this tool will give you the color you want in Hex RGBA values.
  • You know those little icons you see next to the name of a website on the browser tab? They're called favicons and you can make one for your own website at FaviconIt.
  • Google Fonts gives you a wide range of fonts to choose from, and you can use one by adding just one line of code.
  • If you're obssessed with having a website that's compatible across all browsers, you can use the Cross Browser Testing Tool to check what your site looks like no matter what browser is being used.
  • Codepen is a wonderful array of cool HTML, CSS and Javascript effects. They're freely available to copy and use for your own site.
  • Eventually you may need an app to design webpages, and there's nothing better for that than Sketch. It takes a little getting used to but once you have got the hang of it it is a really powerful tool for visualising your site.
Coding events and courses for women Coding events and courses for women
  • Code First Girls is a free part-time coding course for women at university campuses in the UK. They also do loads of great free events in London, like their Twitter Bootstrap workshops. Register here to hear about these.
  • Women Who Code UK is a meetup group for women in tech. They also run lots of learning to code introductions, and their events are great fun.
  • Ladies Who Code UK is another meetup group for women in tech, and it is worth joining their group to hear about all their events like their speaker series.