100+ FREE Resources to Learn Full Stack Web Development
Published in
9 min readMar 16, 2017
A couple years ago I dove into Web Development. It’s been a fun, but challenging journey. As my knowledge continues to grow, I’ve realized I have a plethora of free information that I’ve saved along the way. It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally gone through and sorted them all.
My links focus on JavaScript, React, and Node.js. It’s a mix of articles, tutorials, classes, discussion posts, and courses.
There is also a wealth of information on knowing when you’re ready to apply for jobs, interview prep, success stories, and more.
Whether you’re just starting to learn, or you’ve been learning for a while, there should be a little something for everyone in here.
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Table of Contents
- Start Here
- How to learn
- What is the Most Useful CS Bookmark You have
- Programs & Classes
- Learn HTML
- Learn CSS
- Learn JavaScript
- Learn React.js
- Full Stack Tutorials
- Learn Node.js
- Learn Python
- Learn APIs
- Learn Databases
- Learn Authentication
- Learn Git
- Games & Challenge Websites
- Free Programming Books
- Open Source Contribution Opportunities
- Am I Ready to be a Developer?
- Software Developer Success Stories
- Resume’s, Portfolio’s, LinkedIn, Interview Prep, & Salary Information
Start Here
- Take a look at the big picture: Web Developer Roadmap
- YouTube video outlining what to learn (similar to above, but in video format) — Watch this if you want to become a web developer
- My journey to becoming a web developer from scratch without a CS degree (and what I learned from it) (Medium)
- What happens when you type google into your address bar? [Reddit Link]
- Tuts Plus — The http protocol every web developer must know
- Find a local Web Development related Meetup!
How to Learn
- Coursera Course (Not CS Specific) — Learning how to learn
- Repetition, Repetition, Repetition — A great discussion on study techniques Reddit Post
What is the Single most useful CS Bookmark you have?
- What is the single most useful CS Bookmark you have? [Reddit Link]
- Learn X in Y Minutes
- What CS Majors Should Know
- Google’s Technical Development Guide
- CSS Tricks — Complete Flexbox Guide
- Regex Cheat Sheet
- DevDocs
- Awesome List of Everything Programming
- How to Break Into the Tech Industry — a Guide to Job Hunting and Tech Interviews
Programs and Classes
Programs
- The Web Developer Bootcamp by Colt Steele. This is the only paid resource on this document. I include it because it is worth its weight in gold. It’s inexpensive (less than $20) and one of the best resources out there. If you’re going to buy one course, buy this one.
- The Odin Project
- freeCodeCamp
- The Essential Web Developer Course
Classes
Learn HTML
Learn CSS
- Everything you need to know about Flexbox Seriously the best Flexbox resource I’ve found
- A visual guide to CSS — CSS Reference
- CSS Pro Tips — A collection of tips to help take your CSS skills pro.
- 10 principles for smooth web animations
Learn JavaScript
- Javascript Docs
Courses/Tutorials
- JavaScript for Beginners — Understand the hard stuff
- Javascript for Beginners (1) EDX
- Javascript for Beginners (2) EDX
- Javascript The Right Way
- Courses.AngularClass.com — Topics Include: webpack, nodejs, npm, es5, es6, esnext, & rxjs, typescript
- [Course Link] [Reddit Post]
- Edabit — Learn JavaScript With Interactive Challenges: Earn XP, Unlock Achievements & Climb The Leaderboard
- [Edabit — Website Link] [Reddit Post]
- Free Advanced JavaScript Courses — Learn Object Oriented Programming, Call Apply, and Bind, Testing, Functional Programming, and much more
- Intermediate Course — Udacity — OOP JS
- JavaScript Tutorial
Understanding Tougher Topics
- JavaScript — The keyword ‘this’ for beginners
- JavaScript — Arrow Functions for Beginners
- JavaScript for Beginners: The new Operator
- Javascript: Learn Regular Expressions for Beginners
- JavaScript Template Literals and Tag Functions for Beginners
- JavaScript & the spread operator
Projects
- JS 30 For 30–30 Projects for 30 Days
- Learn to Code with Projects — enlight.ml
- 13 Weeks of JavaScript (Medium) — TONS of links to JS resources
Articles/Books
- Recursion, Recursion, Recursion (Medium)
- Eloquent JS — Free JavaScript Ebook
- You don’t know JS — Free, hosted on GitHub
- JavaScript Garden — learn about the quirky parts of JS
- JS — The Good Parts .pdf
- Learning js Design patterns — Reusable solutions to commonly occurring problems
- Asynchronous Module Definition
Learn React JS
3rd Party Tutorials
- 10 React Mini Patterns
- Top 5 Tutorials for getting started with React
- 10 best ReactJS tutorials
- React Starter Project Search
- Exploring the react Ecosystem! — Article
- Code academy React program
- Great Free React books — Use this link first
Medium Links:
Full Stack Tutorials
- Intro to Back End Web Development
- Deploying Applications with Heroku
- Client Server Communication
- Serverless Stack is a comprehensive guide to creating full-stack serverless applications. Create a note taking app from scratch using React.js, AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, and Cognito.
- Express — Using a DB with Mongoose
- Node JS and Databases
- Node JS and Authentication
- Express JS Database Integration
- MERN Stack Tutorial — Mongo, Express, React, Node
- MongoDB MERN Tutorial Series
- Full Stack MERN Tutorial — YouTube
- Build a URL Shortener with Node, Hapi, and Mongo
- How to Create a Complete Express.js + Node.js + MongoDB CRUD and REST Skeleton
- Building web app using react.js, express.js, node.js and mongodb — Part 1, 2
- Trello tribute with Phoenix, React, Redux, PostgreSQL — 12 parts
- Create a character voting app using React, Node.js, MongoDB and Socket.IO
- Building a React Universal Blog App: A Step-by-Step Guide
- Building a Secure RESTful Node.js app
Cool stuff other people have built:
Learn Node JS
Official Node.js Docs
- 25 Node JS Tutorials
- Best Resources for learning Node.js [Reddit Link]
- YouTube
- Node School
- Medium — Why the hell would you use Node?
- Build a simple Twitter Bot with Node.js in just 38 lines of code
- Building a modern backend API with Node
- Node JS Login with Passport — YouTube
- 10 Best Practices for Writing Node.js REST APIs
Learn Python
Learn Databases
- SQL vs NoSQL
- Intro to Relational Databases — SQL, DB-API, and More!
- MongoDB University — Numerous classes on learning MongoDB
- PostgreSQL Tutorial
- PostgreSQL Exercises
- Learn PostgreSQL (GitHub)
- Try Redis
- Redis Tutorial
Games and Challenge Websites
Games to learn Programming in an easy and fun way [Reddit Link]
- Flex Box Froggy
- Flex Box Defense
- Edabit
- Coding Game
- Elevator Saga — JS
- Scratch — Absolute Basics
- Hacked — Mobile App teaching through puzzles
Coding Challenge Websites [Reddit Link] [Reddit Link #2]
Open Source Contribution Opportunities
- Contributing to Open Source on GitHub — The official GitHub guide.
- Make your first open source contribution in 5 minutes
- How do I get skilled enough to work on open source projects?
- Exercism, an open source project to learn programming and a good opportunity to get you started contributing on github.
- Open Source Contribution Opportunites [Reddit Discussion]
- Redditor Form to fill out to get notified about Open Source Opportunities
- Up For Grabs — Browse a list of projects with curated tasks
- Hacktoberfest — Open source activity held every October. Easy to participate, and you get a free t-shirt!
- I’m afraid if I say anything on GitHub people will laugh at me and I will die.
Am I Ready to be a Developer?
- Self taught front end devs… When did you know that you were “Job ready”?
- People who are self-taught developers, how long did it take you to get your first job?
- When do you know when you’re ready to start interviewing?
- Software developers- what is the best advice you have for people learning CS?
- I want a career in programming
- What should you know as a web dev just out of college?
- Reddit Discussion — newer
- What CS Majors Should Know — older
- How I got started with Side Projects — link
- What are some goals a beginning Self-Taught Developer should have?
- Computer programmers of Reddit, what is your best advice to someone who is currently learning how to code?
- I began teaching myself to code a year ago. I got hired at my first job 4 months ago. Here is a breakdown of somethings I was not ready for (FYI job is remote ruby/rails dev)
Software Developer Success Stories
- 18 months ago I didn’t know how to code, I’m now a self-taught programmer who’s made apps for the NBA, NHL, and schools like Purdue, Notre Dame, Alabama and Clemson. I’m now releasing my software under the MIT license for anyone’s use — AMA!
- Last year I was unemployed and miserable. Using this sub and resources, I’ve been full time employed for a year. I did it with all free resources. I wanna share with you how I did it. (IOS)
- I began teaching myself to code a year ago. I got hired at my first job 4 months ago. Here is a breakdown of somethings I was not ready for (FYI job is remote ruby/rails dev)
- I’m 32 years old, and just started my first full-time job as a developer. One year ago my programming knowledge was basically nil. Everything I learned, I found via /r/learnprogramming, so just wanted to share my experience.
- From zero to software developer — Not really a success story, but a lot of redditors share how they learned. Great for beginners with no path
Get The Job
Resume, Portfolio, LinkedIn, Interview Prep, and Salary Information
Make your portfolio
- Customizable Web Developer Portfolio — Built with Flexbox.
How to Apply
- I spent 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp. Here’s what I learned. (Medium)
- Lessons from my Post-bootcamp Job search (Medium)
- How to land a six figure job in tech with no connections (Medium)
Resume & LinkedIn
- What are some of the best resuмe formats you’ve seen?
- Model examples for Fullstack Developer LinkedIn profiles
Personal Projects
Interview Prep
- CS50 — Prep and Practice for Technical Interviews [YouTube]
- How to Break Into the Tech Industry — a Guide to Job Hunting and Tech Interviews
Common JavaScript Interview Questions Repo
- GitHub Repo — All questions and answers
- Reddit Post — Discussion, with additional questions and answers
- Ammon Bartram — Ask an interviewer anything: interview questions, answers, mistakes
- Sharing some interview tips (Silicon valley employee)
- Job interview questions to ask the interviewer
- I suck at programming interviews.
- When solving an interview problem, talk all the time.
- Hiring managers (or other seasoned developers), what qualities do you look for in your ideal candidate?
- Post your best interview questions
- Been interviewing with a lot of tech startups as a frontend dev, here are the technical questions I’ve been asked (MID-SENIOR LEVEL)
- 10 Interview Questions every JS Developer should know (Medium)
Salary Information
❤ If this post was helpful, please hit the little heart! And don’t forget to check out my other recent articles:
- JavaScript: The Keyword this for Beginners
- JavaScript: Regular Expressions For Beginners
- And when you’re ready to really dive into Web Development — 5 Best Udemy Courses for Learning Full Stack Web Development
