Awesome Quincy Larson Email Archive

This repository is an archive of Quincy Larson's weekly email newsletter.

If you find these learning resources to be worth your time, consider supporting the nonprofit with a tax-deductible donation: https://donate.freecodecamp.org or with a monthly donation via their Patreon account: https://www.patreon.com/m/4797564/

A big thanks to Sourabh Joshi for creating this repo and helping maintain it. He's a software engineer from Bengaluru who works at https://quso.ai.

February 13, 2026

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course that will teach you how to use the security-focused Kali Linux operating system. You’ll learn how to identify, exploit, and defend against real-world vulnerabilities. You'll also build a solid foundation in penetration testing, network security, and vulnerability assessment. Most importantly, you'll learn how to think like a security engineer and leverage tools of the trade like Nmap and Wireshark. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-cybersecurity-and-ethical-hacking-using-kali-linux/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a guide to passing the Certified Kubernetes Administrator Exam. Beau Carnes teaches this course, which will walk you through key DevOps concepts. You'll start by setting up your K8s practice environment. Then you'll bootstrap a multi-node cluster and your control plane. You'll learn about Helm, High Availability Autoscaling, CoreDNS, and more. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/prepare-for-the-kubernetes-administrator-certification-and-pass/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview Tapas Adhikary. He's a software engineer who runs a firm of 20 developers who build projects for companies around the world. He's also a prolific teacher, having written more than 300 programming tutorials. We talk about the changing nature of software engineering, tips for building your own fully-remote software development firm with clients abroad, and lessons he's learned from mentoring more than 500 developers. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/tips-from-a-20-year-developer-veteran-turned-consultancy-founder-tapas-adhikary-interview-podcast-206/

4. And Tapas also just published a full-length handbook on freeCodeCamp Press that you can read right in your browser. It will teach you modern React data fetching best practices. You'll learn how to leverage Suspense, ErrorBoundary, and the new Use API. If you're interested in web development, this is well worth bookmarking. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-modern-react-data-fetching-handbook-suspense-use-and-errorboundary-explained/

5. Finally, I'm proud to share this new DevOps course that freeCodeCamp instructor Gavin Lon just published. You'll learn how to take a full stack app on your local machine and ship it to a fully containerized production environment. Along the way, you'll learn about CI/CD pipelines, Docker images, launching containers, and more. By the end of the course, you'll have a professional-grade pipeline that automatically builds and deploys updates with every push. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-production-ready-pipeline-with-docker-cicd-and-hostinger/

Quote of the Week: "The biggest change in software engineering today is the expectations. Clients are looking for speed of execution, and that is changing everything. The old hierarchy is getting merged, and even a junior dev is expected to bring a solution mindset." – Software engineer and agency owner Tapas Adhikary on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

February 6, 2026

1. Learn to code in Python from one of the greatest living Computer Science professors, Harvard's David J. Malan. This is the 2026 version of the famous CS50 course. It will teach you Python programming fundamentals like functions, conditionals, loops, libraries, file I/O, and more. If you're new to Python, or to coding in general, this is an excellent place to start. (25 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/harvard-cs50-2026-free-computer-science-university-course

2. And a few weeks ago I had the honor of interviewing Harvard CS50 professor David J. Malan on the freeCodeCamp podcast. I was hyped to ask him how he uses emerging LLM tools, and where he thinks the software engineering field is heading. I had a LOT of questions for him and he answered all of them. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/harvard-cs50-prof-david-j-malan-on-why-you-should-learn-programming-slowly-podcast-197/

3. That Harvard computer science course will get you started with programming. But where do you go from there? freeCodeCamp just published a helpful tutorial that will help you bridge from beginner projects to building real-world applications that solve real-world problems. (40 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-go-from-hello-world-to-building-real-world-applications/

4. freeCodeCamp also just published a comprehensive intro to OpenClaw. If you've heard of Clawd Bot or Moltbot, this is the same tool, which they renamed to avoid confusion with the Claude LLM tool. OpenClaw is an agent and messaging gateway that lets you automate digital tasks through platforms like Discord. First you'll learn how to set it up. Then you'll learn security practices like implementing Docker-based sandboxing to protect your host system while your agent executes complicated workflows on your behalf. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/openclaw-full-tutorial-for-beginners

5. You may be using Bluetooth as you read this. It's been a key networking tool since 1999, and now it's getting 3 major upgrades: Passive Scanning, Bond Loss Reasons, and propagation of Service UUIDs. If you're interested in network engineering or IoT–style devices, this tutorial is well worth your read. (90 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-aosp-16-bluetooth-scanner-works-the-ultimate-guide/

Quote of the Week: "There’s something liberating about realizing that at the end of the day everything reduces to zeros and ones. It’s not magic. And once students see that, they think: OK, I got this." — Harvard computer science professor David Malan on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

January 30, 2026

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course on relational database design for beginners. You'll learn SQL fundamentals, entity-relationship modeling, normal forms, data types, indexing strategies, query optimization, and more. Database design is a key developer skill that isn't going away. This course will help you build a strong foundation in it. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-relational-database-design/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a Python machine learning course that will teach you how to train large neural networks using several Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) in parallel. You'll learn pipeline parallelism from scratch by applying three different approaches: naïve stop-and-wait, GPipe with micro-batching, and the interleaved 1F1B algorithm. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-pipeline-parallelism-from-scratch/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview Sumit Saha, a software engineer who runs a developer agency with clients throughout Asia. We talk about his observation that “the hunger for learning is dying.” He says people are increasingly drawn to shortcuts over taking the time to truly understand concepts. He shares his information diet, and his tips for expanding your skills. We also have a lightning round where he explains 5 key developer concepts through helpful analogies. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-stay-curious-as-a-dev-in-the-ai-hype-era-with-sumit-saha-podcast-205/

4. Learn how to build your own Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)-powered search engine. You can code along at home and build the app using TypeScript, Next.js, and PostgreSQL. Your users will be able to upload documents, then search through them using LLM-powered semantic search. This is a great hands-on tutorial with tons of code examples and emerging best practices. (45 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-an-ai-powered-rag-search-application-with-nextjs-supabase-and-openai/

5. Learn how to use the Builder pattern in Python. This software design pattern simplifies constructing complicated objects by separating their construction from their representation. The author of this tutorial, Bala Pria C., has now written 37 Python tutorials with the freeCodeCamp community. I love her clear style and her clear code examples. And I think you will, too. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-the-builder-pattern-in-python-a-practical-guide-for-devs/

Quote of the Week: "In software engineering, we live and die by stability and security. The entire industry is run on maintainability. If you write code using AI codegen or some vibe coding tool, it will be a mess. You’ll lose control. You can use LLM help at the function or class level, but you have to carefully instruct it for anything bigger than that." - Software engineer and agency founder Sumit Saha on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

January 23, 2026

1. freeCodeCamp just published a new Python Data Structures & Algorithms course that will help you understand key Dynamic Programming patterns. These approaches come up all the time in technical interviews. You'll learn Constant Transition, the Grid Pattern, Two Sequences, Interval DP, Non-Constant Transition, Knapsack-like problems, and more. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-dynamic-programming-through-dynamic-visuals/

2. If you're interested in building projects on top of Large Language Models, freeCodeCamp just published a Python course on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). You'll learn how to turn documents into embeddings then store them in vector databases. The course will also walk you through building your own Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-rag-and-mcp-fundamentals/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Mike McQuaid. He's a software engineer who maintains Homebrew, an open source package manager used by tens of millions of developers. We talk about how big open source infrastructure gets maintained and what a career in open source really looks like. Mike also shares how he uses LLM code generation tools, and which developer skills he thinks will be the most important going forward. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-most-important-skills-going-forward-with-cto-homebrew-maintainer-mike-mcquaid-podcast-204/

4. And next week I'm interviewing the author of this new handbook that freeCodeCamp just published: How Execution Context Works in JavaScript. If you're a JS dev, this is essential reading. You'll learn about interpretation vs compilation. Then you'll see how Node.js and the V8 engine load and execute code. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-execution-context-works-in-javascript-handbook/

5. Finally, this weekend you can build your own fully-playable horror game based on the legendary “The Backrooms” liminal space. For some reason my kids are terrified of this weirdly normal-looking office setting. You'll build your own environment using Unreal Engine 5 and the Blueprints visual scripting tool that abstracts away all the C++ code for you. Throw in a body-cam style camera perspective and some creepy monsters and you'll have the perfect way to scare friends and family alike. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-the-backrooms-game-in-unreal-engine-5/

Quote of the Week: "Past You and Future You are almost like two different people. If you design your tools and your systems well, Future You will constantly be thanking Past You." — Homebrew Lead Maintainer Mike McQuaid on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

January 16, 2026

1. I spent three days at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts recording a documentary about the world's largest collegiate hackathon. More than 3,000 student developers participated in this year's UC Berkeley Cal Hacks hackathon. Over the course of 36 hours, they built a broad array of projects, then demo'd them to judges from industry. I now present to you the finished documentary. I hope you find it both enjoyable and inspiring. (80-minute documentary): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/inside-cal-hacks-2025-36-hours-at-the-worlds-largest-collegiate-hackathon/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a new course on building your own custom Kubernetes operators and controllers from scratch. You'll learn everything from the internal architecture of Informers and Caches to advanced concepts like Finalizers and Idempotency. If you're interested in DevOps, this is the course for you. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-your-own-kubernetes-operators-with-go-and-kubebuilder/

3. On this week's podcast, I interview a corporate lawyer who learned programming at age 37 then ultimately got a job as a software engineer at Google. He talks about his journey and how he leveraged freeCodeCamp's coursework. He also talks about how the coding part of the job is getting easier with LLM tools, which makes other aspects like critical thinking all the more important. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/first-developer-job-at-age-38-with-lawyer-turned-software-engineer-zubin-pratap-podcast-203/

4. Learn how to select the best GPU for economically training your models and running inference workloads. This no-nonsense guide will help you understand why certain specs matter more than others. It will also help you navigate around common pitfalls when buying or renting GPUs. (35 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-choose-the-best-gpu-for-your-ai-workloads/

5. Learn how to benchmark embedding models using your own custom data. This course will walk you through leveraging Vision Language Models for precise text extraction. You'll also learn how to use LLMs to generate synthetic evaluation data. Finally, you'll get exposure to the rigorous statistical tests that can help you find the best models for whatever hardware you have on hand. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-benchmark-embedding-models-on-your-own-data/

Quote of the Week: "When LLMs can do a lot of the autocomplete and the code generation for you, it comes down to your design work, your judgment, your taste, your analysis, your code review. You're going to be managing an LLM for at least 10% of your work. And that comes down to communication. What is a spec? What is a good prompt? It's communication. It is helping the LLM understand your goals." — lawyer-turned-software engineer Zubin Pratap on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

January 9, 2026

1. freeCodeCamp just published a book that will teach you the math that powers most AI systems. Even if you haven't studied math since high school, you may find this book helpful in expanding your understanding of the layers of abstraction underpinning these emerging tools. You'll learn key concepts in statistics, linear algebra, calculus, and optimization theory. You'll also get a healthy dose of mathematical history. (free full-length book): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-math-behind-artificial-intelligence-book/

2. And if you're finding the sudden surge in AI tools to be overwhelming, freeCodeCamp just published this practical guide to using them effectively. This tutorial will separate the utility from the hype. You'll learn how to minimize hallucinations with Context Management. You'll also learn about agentic tools and in-editor assistants. It even has tips for how to prevent your own developer skills from atrophying, so you can adopt these tools without becoming overly dependent on them. (35 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-not-be-overwhelmed-by-ai/

3. freeCodeCamp also published a course on React Optimization. You'll learn key React design patterns to achieve a screaming-fast front end. This course covers memoization, derived states, throttling, debouncing, concurrency, virtualization, and more. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-optimize-react/

4. Learn modern music production using the popular FruityLoops Studio Digital Audio Workstation tool. This FL Studio course will teach you sound design fundamentals, mixing, filters, drum sequencing, basslines, synth melodies, and even advanced concepts like kick drum ducking. You can play along at home and by the end of the course you'll have your own bass house track you can share with your friends. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-music-production-with-fl-studio/

5. And in case you missed my year-end announcement, we just launched Version 10 of freeCodeCamp's JavaScript certification, along with updated Python, SQL, and Responsive Web Design certifications that you can earn. We even launched our beta Spanish and Mandarin Chinese curricula. (10 minute announcement article with tons of data): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/christmas-gifts-freecodecamp-community-2025/

Quote of the Week: "In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them." — John von Neumann, mathematician and creator of von Neumann computer architecture, which is almost certainly used in the device that you're reading this on

December 24, 2025

1. 2025 has been an amazing year for the global freeCodeCamp community. And we’re thrilled to cap it off with the launch of several Christmas gifts for you. We just launched Version 10 of freeCodeCamp's JavaScript certification, along with updated Python, SQL, and Responsive Web Design certifications that you can earn. We even launched our beta Spanish and Mandarin Chinese curricula. (10 minute announcement article with tons of data): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/christmas-gifts-freecodecamp-community-2025

2. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview the son of an Indian textile worker who's now been working as a dev for 16 years. Santosh Yadav has managed to climb the ladder at Indian and European tech companies without needing to become a manager himself. He shares practical tips for devs who don't want to become managers, but do want to continue to ascend. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-get-promoted-as-a-dev-without-becoming-a-manager-staff-engineer-santosh-yadav-interview-podcast-202/

3. And now for some advanced learning resources to tide you over the holiday break. First, learn eBPF Tracing for when you're debugging Kubernetes apps, but your logs are failing you. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-debug-kubernetes-apps-when-logs-fail-you-an-ebpf-tracing-handbook/

4. Second, learn how to perform secure hashing using Python's hashlib module. This is helpful for storing sensitive information, verifying file integrity, and other cybersecurity purposes. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-perform-secure-hashing-using-pythons-hashlib-module/

5. Third, learn how to build your own Log-Structured Merge Tree from scratch as a new way to store data in your apps. These work by “appending new data to the existing data, instead of looking for something that exists and updating it. In other words, you don't have to spend any CPU cycles thinking about where to store data. You just append it at the end.” (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-an-lsm-tree-storage-engine-from-scratch-handbook/

Quote of the Week: “The day you stop waiting for your manager to tell you what’s broken, and you start fixing the things everyone else is ignoring, is the day you start moving up.” — Software Developer Santosh Yadav on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

December 19, 2025

1. I'm thrilled to announce that freeCodeCamp just launched our new Python certification curriculum. You can learn Python by building projects right in your browser. You'll learn a ton of fundamental programming concepts through our extensive theory sections. Then you'll apply that theory and get lots of reps with Python syntax by building projects. You can sit for the final exam and earn a certification that you can add to your LinkedIn or portfolio website. This is just one of the six certs in Version 10 of freeCodeCamp's Full Stack Developer Curriculum. This Python module is years in the making, and I think you're going to learn a lot from it. (comprehensive interactive curriculum): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/freecodecamps-new-python-certification-is-now-live/

2. Learn game development fundamentals by building your own 2D pixel art tower defense game. You'll use the popular Unity game development framework. You can code along at home and learn how to set up 2D tilemap levels, animate pixel-art characters, build towers, and spawn enemy waves. Then you'll learn how to export your game to be playable on Windows, Android, and in a web browser. (10 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/create-a-2d-pixel-art-game-in-unity/

3. On this week's podcast I interview Jason Lengstorf, a college dropout who taught himself programming while building websites for his emo band. 22 years later, he's worked as a developer at IBM, Netlify, and run his own dev consultancy. He shares his observation that many CEOs over-estimated the impact of AI coding tools and laid off too many developers. He says the developer job market has already rebounded a bit, but will never be the same. He shares tons of tips for how to land roles in the post-LLM labor market. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-ai-is-going-to-replace-devs-hype-is-over-22-year-developer-veteran-jason-lengstorf-podcast-201/

4. Learn modern web development techniques by building your own sales dashboard app using React, JavaScript, and Supabase. You'll start by architecting your database schema. Then you'll set up session management. Finally, you'll implement real-time data operations. By the end of the course, you'll have a dashboard app you can show off to your friends. (5 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/supabase-for-beginners/

5. Now you can learn Spanish on freeCodeCamp. We just launched our Spanish curriculum today, which we've been working on all year. You'll learn proper Spanish pronunciation, greetings, introductions, numbers, and more. You'll also learn how to type Spanish characters like this one ñ on your phone and computer. We already have more than 200 steps live, with the rest of the CEFR A1 level going live in 2026. ¡Aprendamos! (fully interactive curriculum): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/freecodecamps-a1-professional-spanish-curriculum-beta-is-now-live/

Quote of the Week: “The promise was that AI was going to replace developers. We’re seeing pretty clearly that’s not the case. Anything beyond a toy, anything that requires maintenance or significant feature development, you can’t vibe-code that. The strongest developers in the future are the ones who have the right skills to leverage AI effectively.” — Software Engineer Jason Lengstorf on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

December 12, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just launched our new JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms Certification. You can now take the final exam and earn this verified cert, then add it to your LinkedIn, CV, or personal website. This is version 10 of the core freeCodeCamp curriculum. The community collectively spent thousands of hours developing all this to serve as your shortest path to acquiring programming fundamentals. (300 hour interactive curriculum – announcement article and FAQ): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/freecodecamps-new-javascript-certification-is-now-live/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a project-oriented course on building your own AI agents using the n8n framework. You'll learn about vector databases, Retrieval-Augmented Generation, multi-workflow builds, and more. You can code along at home, and by the end of the course you'll have a variety of agentic projects you can show off to your friends. (4 hour course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-n8n-to-design-develop-and-deploy-production-grade-ai-agents/

3. On this week's podcast I interview Kunal Kushwaha. He's a software engineer and prolific computer science teacher on YouTube. After years of preparation, he failed India's Engineering Entrance Exam not once but twice. But he persevered. He built his own learning path by contributing code to open source projects. In his short career as a developer, he's worked at small startups as well as at a big UK cloud provider as their field CTO. He shares tons of tips for learning new skills, being productive while working remotely, and his thoughts on the Indian higher education system. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-your-own-learning-path-using-open-source-with-kunal-kushwaha-podcast-200/

4. Tell your friends who are learning English: freeCodeCamp just launched our English for Developers curriculum. You can learn vocab, grammar, reading, and listening – all through stories set in a Silicon Valley tech company. This is level A2 English, meaning it's lower intermediate. We'll introduce other CEFR levels in the coming months as well. (interactive curriculum with certification – announcement article and FAQ): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/freecodecamps-a2-english-for-developers-certification-is-now-live/

5. freeCodeCamp also published an advanced Python course that will teach you about sequence models and Neural Machine Translation. You'll learn about historical breakthroughs, architectural innovations, and mathematical insights as you reproduce the findings of 7 landmark AI papers using the PyTorch machine learning library. (7 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/building-nmt-from-scratch-pytorch-replications-of-7-landmark-papers/

Quote of the Week: “Open source saved my career. It gave me credibility, proof of work, skills, projects to showcase, and a network.” — Software Engineer Kunal Kushwaha on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

December 5, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a Git and GitHub for beginners course. Git is a powerful version control tool that most developers now use to build software projects together. GitHub is a popular platform that adds tons of collaboration features on top of Git. You'll learn the basics of both in this course, which covers branching, merging, pull requests, and other key concepts. Well worth your time. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/git-and-github-crash-course-for-beginners

2. freeCodeCamp also just launched our new Responsive Web Design Certification. You can now take the final exam and earn this verified cert, then add it to your LinkedIn, CV, or personal website. This is version 10 of the core fCC curriculum. The community collectively spent thousands of hours developing all this as your shortest path to front-end development skills. This announcement and comprehensive FAQ will help you figure out where this fits into your journey toward your learning goals. (100+ hour interactive curriculum): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/freecodecamps-new-responsive-web-design-certification-is-now-live/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview Andrea Griffiths, who taught herself programming using freeCodeCamp while working in construction. She moved to the US from Colombia when she was 17, and within 6 months she joined the US Army. She ran a chain of gyms before landing a support role at a tech company, then ascended to Product Manager and ultimately Developer Advocate at GitHub. She shares tips for busy parents who want to learn new skills, and how to stay focused in an increasingly distracting world. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/tips-from-serial-career-changer-github-andrea-griffiths-podcast-199/

4. freeCodeCamp also just published a new Harvard CS50 course that will teach you R, a popular programming language for statistical computing and data science. You'll work with real-world datasets inside the RStudio Integrated Development Environment. You'll learn about Vectors, Matrices, Data Frames, filtering, visualizations, and more. (9 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-r-programming-from-harvard-university/

5. It is with great pride that I announce our Top Open Source Contributors of 2025. It's been a super productive year for the global freeCodeCamp community. As we start our 12th year as a community, we’re firing on all cylinders, pushing forward more steadily than ever toward a future of open source education. (5 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/freecodecamp-top-open-source-contributors-2025/

Quote of the Week: “Take a moment to stop and think about what it is that truly matters to you. And then start making the changes that you need to make.” — Andrea Griffiths on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast talking about her decision to learn programming and launch into an entirely new career

November 26, 2025

1. Before modern Large Language Models, scientists and developers worked with more fundamental Natural Language Processing tools. freeCodeCamp just published a handbook that will help you understand the tools that power chatbots, machine translation, text summarization, and more. You'll learn how computers analyze syntax, model semantics, and interpret context. Then you'll use popular Python libraries to apply those concepts to real projects. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-nlp-techniques-and-tools-in-your-projects-full-handbook/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a handbook that will give you a nuanced understanding of one of the trickier aspects of JavaScript development: Closures. First you'll learn about functions, parameters, and lexical scope. Then you'll learn how a Closure "closes over" a variable to keep it safe, while still granting you access to its values through function calls. If this sounds complicated, it is. But fear not – this handbook will give you tons of code examples of Closure mechanics, and teach you when to use them. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-closures-work-in-javascript-a-handbook-for-developers/

3. On this week's podcast I interview two university students who won a 24-hour hackathon. They built a project that helps people who are losing their vision learn how to read Braille. Alison Co and Cindy Cui talk about how, in the middle of the night, they decided to completely rip out their project's AI component. It made their code run so much faster. They share tips for succeeding at hackathons, and also for landing internships at companies like Shopify. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/when-not-to-use-ai-in-your-hackathon-project-with-mlh-winners-cindy-cui-and-alison-co-podcast-198/

4. Flexbox is a powerful CSS feature that lets you build user interfaces that fit any screen size. If you’ve ever struggled to center something with CSS or tried to make columns line up nicely, well, Flexbox simplifies this dramatically. freeCodeCamp just published a Flexbox for beginners course where you'll learn both the concepts and the code syntax while building a responsive website navigation bar. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-css-flexbox-for-beginners-free-2-hour-course

5. When you're working with Large Language Models, every additional token adds cost and latency. Microsoft just open-sourced a tool called LLMLingua that will compress your prompts and other context window data. freeCodeCamp published this tutorial to help you understand how this works and how you can add it to your Python projects. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-compress-your-prompts-and-reduce-llm-costs/

Quote of the Week: “Care less about school. It took me too long to realize that I should be doing more projects hands-on instead of worrying about trying to get like a 95 on a quiz that was worth 10 percent of my grade.” — Developer and university student Cindy Cui on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

November 21, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published this beginner-friendly back-end development course. You'll learn how to build your own web servers and APIs using Node.js, Express, and MongoDB. freeCodeCamp's website and mobile apps are built using these tools, which make up the popular MERN stack. You'll also get some exposure to database architecture, security principles, testing best practices, and more. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/intro-to-backend-web-development-nodejs-express-mongodb/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a comprehensive Blender and Three.js course where you'll build your own 3D portfolio piece: a render of an adorable home office. If you're interested in 3D rendering and computer graphics, this is the course for you. You'll learn key concepts like Quad Topology, Raycasting, OrbitControls, and more. By the end of the course, your 3D model will be live on the web so you can share it with your friends. (9 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/create-a-cute-room-portfolio-with-threejs-blender-javascript/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I had the honor of interviewing Harvard CS50 professor David J. Malan. Over the years, freeCodeCamp has published many of his computer science courses, which millions of people have now taken. I was hyped to ask him how he uses emerging LLM tools, and where he thinks the software engineering field is heading. I had a LOT of questions for him and he answered all of them. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/harvard-cs50-prof-david-j-malan-on-why-you-should-learn-programming-slowly-podcast-197/

4. freeCodeCamp also published a handbook on using Docker with Node.js. You'll learn how to set up Docker and Docker Compose. You'll also learn fundamental concepts like Volumes, Images, and Containers. This is an excellent resource for you to read through and code along with. Bookmark it for future reference. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-to-docker-with-nodejs-handbook/

5. Level up your JavaScript implementation skills with this new freeCodeCamp course on Clean Code. You'll learn how to detect “code smells” and refactor your JavaScript accordingly. You'll also learn how to use ESLint and Prettier to automate some of the more error-prone aspects of shipping code. (1 hour watch): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/level-up-your-javascript-detect-smells-and-write-clean-code/

Quote of the Week: “There’s something liberating about realizing that at the end of the day everything reduces to zeros and ones. It’s not magic. And once students see that, they think: OK, I got this.” — Harvard computer science professor David J. Malan on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

November 14, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a Discrete Mathematics for beginners course. It'll teach you tons of math concepts that are key to modern Machine Learning. You'll learn some Number Theory and Combinatorics, then use Python to explore the Pigeonhole Principle, the Stars and Bars Principle, Stirling Numbers, the Chinese Remainder Theorem, and more. (9 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-discrete-mathematics/

2. We also published this JavaScript course on the open source n8n agentic workflow automation tool. freeCodeCamp instructor Gavin Lon will teach you core concepts like working with loops, trigger nodes, webhooks, and more. You can code along at home and build 4 real-world projects, including a chatbot and an emergency notification app. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-complex-workflows-with-n8n-and-master-ai-integration/

3. On this week's podcast I talk with a dev who taught herself programming at age 27. Abbey Perini worked as an admin at a recruitment agency and has a unique perspective on the developer hiring process. She shares practical tips for applying and interviewing. She also shares how she has adapted to her adult ADHD diagnosis, and how she stays focused on shipping code. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/applying-into-the-void-with-recruiter-admin-abbey-perini-podcast-196/

4. Learn the popular Vue.js front end JavaScript framework. You'll learn Vue's core building blocks like components, reactivity, template syntax, dynamic data binding, and asset handling. By the end of the course, you'll have a simple Vue app that you can show to your friends. Also note that I recently interviewed Evan You, the creator of Vue, on the freeCodeCamp podcast. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-vuejs-javascript-framework-course/

5. Learn how to run an open source LLM locally on your own hardware using Ollama. This is a great way to unlock the power of LLMs without the privacy and security tradeoffs of using public LLM websites and APIs. This freeCodeCamp guide will walk you through the setup process and give you a feel for the options at your disposal. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-run-an-open-source-llm-on-your-personal-computer-run-ollama-locally/

Quote of the Week: “People get jobs years down the line because someone remembers them from an interview and wishes they could have hired them then.” — Software Engineer and former recruitment agency admin Abbey Perini on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

November 7, 2025

1. Learn how cryptography works, and how developers use it to secure both data and communication. freeCodeCamp just published a course that will teach you Python functions for symmetric and asymmetric encryption. You'll learn about SHA-256, AES, RSA, and public / private keys as well. You'll even code your own command-line cryptography tool. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/cryptography-for-beginners-full-python-course-sha-256-aes-rsa-passwords/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a course on building your own 3D games that run in a browser using Three.js and Blender. You'll learn how to model characters, design levels, detect collisions, and make the camera follow your playable character. You'll even deploy your game to the cloud so your friends can play it. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/creative-web-development-with-threejs-and-blender/

3. On this week's podcast I interview a self-taught developer with nearly a decade of software engineering experience. Patrick Hartley had to drop out of college to provide for his family. He taught himself programming while working at a thrift store, getting experience by freelancing and building his own apps. After 10 years as a dev, he turned down opportunities at big tech companies so he could continue working remotely from Oklahoma City. He shares tips for building foundational Python and JavaScript skills, surviving meetings as an introvert, and landing remote roles – even when you're competing with the global developer talent pool. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/he-turned-down-a-faang-dev-job-to-keep-working-remotely-with-patrick-hartley-podcast-195/

4. Learn Event-Driven Architecture. freeCodeCamp published this advanced JavaScript handbook that will teach you about Event Loops, Task Queues, Call Stacks, Backpressure, Websockets, Pub/Sub, and more. Take your full stack development skills to the next level and be sure to share this with your developer friends. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/event-based-architectures-in-javascript-a-handbook-for-devs/

5. freeCodeCamp also published our first ever guitar course. You'll learn beginner music theory concepts like chords and scales. You'll then map them to the guitar fretboard. You'll also learn guitar-specific techniques like barre chords. I learned guitar during the pandemic and am having an absolute blast with it. I hope you will, too. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/guitar-theory-course-for-beginners-learn-fretboard-major-scale-and-triads

Quote of the Week: “I'd be happy sitting in a basement coding 8 hours a day. But I'm growing a lot faster trying to be an extrovert.” — Self-taught Software Engineer Patrick Hartley on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

October 31, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a new course taught by legendary Harvard computer science professor Dr. David J. Malan. This comprehensive cybersecurity for beginners course will teach you how to secure accounts, databases, and entire software systems. Dr. Malan also shares tons of practical tips for securing your privacy in an increasingly adversarial world. (8 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-cybersecurity-from-harvard-university

2. freeCodeCamp also published a guide to passing the Certified Kubernetes Administrator Exam. Beau Carnes teaches this course, which will walk you through key DevOps concepts. You'll start by setting up your K8s practice environment. Then you'll bootstrap a multi-node cluster and your control plane. You'll learn about Helm, High Availability Autoscaling, CoreDNS, and more. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/prepare-for-the-kubernetes-administrator-certification-and-pass/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview a software engineer who got his first developer job at age 45. Eric Carlson is a self-taught software engineer at Cisco. In his early 20s, he worked his way up to manager at the busiest Domino's Pizza in Canada. He eventually went to college and studied liberal arts, then worked as a teacher for two decades before teaching himself programming using freeCodeCamp. He was able to gradually pivot into a developer role within the big telecom company where he was working. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/first-dev-job-at-45-interview-with-self-taught-freecodecamp-grad-eric-carlson-podcast-194/

4. Learn how to build high-performance mobile apps using Google's open-source Flutter framework. freeCodeCamp uses Flutter for our Android and iPhone apps, and it's way easier than maintaining two separate app codebases. This Flutter handbook will teach you how to efficiently lay out your apps with minimum widget rebuilds. You'll learn state management techniques, asynchronous patterns, and image caching best practices. You'll also learn how to use Isolates and lazy loading to make your apps really snappy. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-scalable-and-performant-flutter-applications-a-handbook-for-devs/

5. Learn Serverless Architecture using C# .NET and Azure cloud. This jam-packed course will teach you common microservice patterns, Onion Architecture, IoT functions, and more. (5 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/serverless-and-microservices-with-c-and-azure/

Quote of the Week: “Most developer stories about learning to code involve having time to do things like go to meetups, build side projects, grind LeetCode, and so on. I didn’t have time or energy to do any of these things with a baby at home. So I found another way into my first developer job. For me, I had to find a way to get paid to code at my non-coding job. First I found a way to code for 5% of my job, then 10%, then a jump to 50%, and finally a jump to a 100% coding role.” — Software Engineer Eric Carlson on how he transitioned into a developer role within his current company at age 45, on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

October 24, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a massive course that will teach you almost every major data structure and algorithm that may come up in a developer job interview. You'll learn about Time Complexity, Space Complexity, and Big O Notation. Then you'll learn concepts like Trees, Graphs, Dynamic Programming, Backtracking, and more. (49 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/master-technical-interviews-by-learning-data-structures-and-algorithms/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a handbook that will teach you React for beginners. React is a powerful front end development library that tons of companies use to make their websites more interactive. If you already know some basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, this handbook is for you. You'll learn about JSX, components, event handlers, hooks, and more. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/react-handbook-for-beginners-learn-jsx-hooks-rendering/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast: from injured athlete to self-taught software engineer. I interview Kaleb Garner who earned a university scholarship to play baseball. But after a career-ending injury, he dropped out and moved back in with his parents. While working at an optometry office, he used freeCodeCamp to learn programming. We talk about how he was able to land his first developer job after only 20 carefully-researched applications. He also shares tips for making your network and your skillset more layoff-resilient. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-injured-athlete-to-software-engineer-with-kaleb-garner-podcast-193/

4. This SwiftUI for Beginners course will give you the tools you need to build your first iPhone app. You can code along at home and build your own movie browsing app with powerful search features and the ability to stream movie trailers. You'll learn about navigation, API networking requests, SwiftData, and more. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-swiftui-and-create-an-ios-app-from-scratch/

5. Finally, freeCodeCamp published an advanced Python tutorial on Machine Learning Lineage. This is important to establish the safety of mission critical AI systems. You'll learn about ETL Pipelines, Data Drift Checks, Model Tuning, and Model Risk Assessment. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-end-to-end-machine-learning-lineage/

Quote of the Week: "If they won't hire you without a degree, they weren't a good fit for you anyway." — Software Engineer Kaleb Garner on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

October 17, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a course on how to build your own MCP server with Python. Model Context Protocol Servers are like APIs for AI agents. Lots of developers are now building them to help agents interact with their websites' data more accurately. This course will teach you how to leverage the open source FastMCP library to build a calculator project that agents can then directly interact with. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-mcp-essentials-and-how-to-create-secure-agent-interfaces-with-fastmcp

2. Learn how to pass Google's new Generative AI Leader Certification Exam. Andrew Brown is a CTO who has passed practically every DevOps exam under the sun, and he teaches this course. He'll give you a business-level understanding of Google Cloud's gen AI offerings. By the end of this course, with the help of Andrew's practice materials, you'll be ready to sit for the exam. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/pass-the-google-generative-ai-leader-certification-exam/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview Evan You. He's the creator of the popular Vue front end development framework and the Vite JavaScript build tool that a lot of devs use as a boilerplate for their new projects. As a self-taught developer, he shares tips for getting involved in open source and ultimately leading open source projects and attracting sponsors. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/evan-you-from-art-school-kid-to-open-source-legend-podcast-192/

4. Teach your apps how to learn. This comprehensive Machine Learning fundamentals course will walk you through building systems smart enough to create their own algorithms. You'll use C++ to implement a Preceptron, which will then look at images of shapes and figure out ways to reliably label them. (interactive course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/machine-learning-tutorial-how-to-program-without-creating-your-own-algorithms/

5. Strix is a relatively new open source tool for testing the security of your apps and identifying vulnerabilities. It's essentially an AI-powered white hat attacker that you set loose in your codebase. This tutorial will explain how it works and how you can use it to harden your apps against common exploits. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-strix-the-open-source-ai-agent-for-security-testing/

Quote of the Week: "When I build things, I often start by prototyping the end developer experience I want for myself — then I reverse engineer from that to the implementation details." — Software Engineer Evan You on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

October 3, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a new in-depth course that will teach you full stack development fundamentals from the ground up. It covers front end development tools like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Then it moves to back end development tools like Node, SQL, and TypeScript. You can code along at home and build a variety of projects while getting exposed to a ton of concepts. (47 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/become-a-full-stack-developer-with-one-video/

2. We also just completed work on this new Go programming course where you build your own movie streaming app. Go is a fast back end language, and here we're pairing it with the Gin-Gonic web server framework. As you build this project, you'll also integrate your movie database with OpenAI's API to analyze data and give your users personalized movie recommendations. (15 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-full-stack-movie-streaming-app-with-go-react-mongodb-openai/

3. On this week's podcast I interview the self-taught developer who built freeCodeCamp's relational database curriculum, and is now designing our daily coding challenges. Tom Mondloch shares how he finished community college and wasn't sure what to do next. So he spent the next few years working odd jobs in the great outdoors. He used freeCodeCamp to learn modern development tools and started contributing to open source projects. He shares tips for brushing up on your skills after you've taken a long break from programming. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/lone-wolf-dev-turned-open-source-super-contributor-tom-mondloch-podcast-190/

4. When browsing the web, you may see the error message that something has been “blocked by CORS policy.” CORS stands for Cross-Origin Resource Sharing. When fetching data, if the domain of the requester is different from the domain of the receiver, your browser will reject that request. It's an important security measure, but it can also be a headache for developers trying to maintain their web apps. Luckily, freeCodeCamp just published this tutorial – chock full of theory and code examples – to help you understand the basics. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-fix-cross-origin-errors/

5. You've probably heard people throw around terms like Deep Learning, Machine Learning, and Generative AI. But what do they mean in relation to one another? This quick article breaks down the jargon for you in plain English. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/machine-learning-vs-deep-learning-vs-generative-ai/

Quote of the Week: "Just start. Find an open source repo. Find an issue. Even if it’s just a typo. Fix it and move on from there. That’s how you gain experience and grow as a developer." — Software Engineer Tom Mondloch on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

September 27, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published an in-depth Python course that will walk you through training your own Large Language Model. If you have some basic programming skills and want to get deeper into Machine Learning, this is an excellent place to start. You'll learn about key concepts like Reward Modeling, Supervised Fine-Tuning, Mixture-of-Experts Layers, RMSNorm, RoPE, KV caching, and more. Dive in. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/code-an-llm-from-scratch-theory-to-rlhf/

2. We also published a Python course that will help you build production-ready AI systems. This no-nonsense course will take you step by step through building a sophisticated data pipeline that scrapes training data, cleans it up, and ensures its integrity before feeding it into your model. I love this dude's relentless teaching style. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-an-enterprise-grade-ai-project/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview Ihechikara Abba, a software engineer with a Chess Elo of 2285, which puts him among top players. We talk about his recent freeCodeCamp course on checkmate patterns, and how improving your chess game can also improve your programming. He also shares tips for getting into embedded systems development with Arduino. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-chess-and-become-a-better-developer-with-ihechikara-abba-elo-rating-of-2285-podcast-189/

4. freeCodeCamp also published a course on building advanced AI agents. You'll use Python to implement interactive voice agents and intelligent research assistants. This course will even expose you to multi-agent workflows. You'll use sample codebases and popular tools like LangChain and LiveKit to code along at home. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-advanced-ai-agents/

5. Memory leaks are one of the most common performance issues with React apps. This JavaScript tutorial will walk you through the most common ways they afflict your apps. Then it'll equip you with the tools you need to track memory leaks down and fix them. It's chock full of code examples for Event Listeners, Timers, Subscriptions, and Async Operations. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/fix-memory-leaks-in-react-apps/

Quote of the Week: "If you don't like playing the social media game, contributing code to open source projects can serve as an alternative to building up a social media presence." — Software Engineer Ihechikara Abba on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

September 20, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published this comprehensive front end development course where you build your own browser-based code editor. You can code along at home and build your own single page app development environment with tabs for editing your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Along the way, you'll learn some intermediate JS techniques that allow for instant live preview, so you can see the results of your code changes right away. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/code-your-own-code-editor/

2. I also made a quick announcement about some big improvements to our core Full Stack Development curriculum. In short, we're breaking down our new coursework into a series of six new certifications you can earn along the way to the capstone cert. These include Python, Relational Databases, Front End Libraries, and more. (5 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/introducing-freecodecamp-checkpoint-certifications/

3. freeCodeCamp also just published this new course that will help you pass the Databricks Data Engineer Associate certification exam. Andrew Brown is a CTO who has passed practically every DevOps exam under the sun, and he teaches this course. He'll introduce you to key concepts like Clusters, Structured Streaming, Data Lakes, and more. (8 hour course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/prepare-for-the-databricks-data-engineer-associate-certification-exam-and-pass/

4. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview two legends in the self-taught developer community: 100Devs founder Leon Noel and prolific teacher Danny Thompson. We spent the entire hour talking about the developer job market, and how it's changed due to interest rate changes and AI hype uncertainty. Danny and Leon have helped thousands of people navigate the developer job search, so they have tons of practical advice. You'll learn about common misconceptions people have about résumés, recruiters, Applicant Tracking Systems, knockout questions, and more. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/playing-the-developer-job-search-game-to-win-in-2025-with-danny-thompson-and-leon-noel-podcast-188/

5. Finally, enjoy this breezy read about Cosine Similarity and the role it plays in Large Language Models. As its author, Manish, says, Cosine Similarity is “a bridge between human language and machine understanding. It allows a model to treat meaning as geometry, turning questions and answers into points in space.” Not only will you learn the math involved, you'll also see it implemented in Python code. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-does-cosine-similarity-work/

Quote of the Week: "If your goal is to ship something right now, you should use AI. But if your goal is to build something you can understand and talk about in front of employers, you shouldn't be using AI right now." — Software Engineer Danny Thompson on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

September 13, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a GameDev for beginners course that will help you build your first 2D platformer game. First you'll learn the basics of the open source Godot game engine, and its Python-like GDScript programming language. Then you'll dive into Godot's editor, custom tile sets, game mechanics, scoring, checkpoint systems, and more. By the end of the course, you'll have your own game that your friends can play in any browser. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-game-development-by-building-your-first-platformer-with-godot/

2. freeCodeCamp just launched our daily coding challenges. You can solve these programming puzzles using Python or JavaScript. Build up your data structures + algorithms skills each day, right in your browser or in the freeCodeCamp iPhone or Android app. We're launching with a backlog of 30 challenges that are live now. See how many you can solve. (article with more details): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/introducing-freecodecamp-daily-python-and-javascript-challenges-solve-a-new-programming-puzzle-every-day/

3. Learn how to build your own secure PHP web apps using the popular open source Symfony framework. This intermediate course is taught by Beau Carnes, who has many years of experience as a software engineer and as a high school special ed teacher. He'll quickly fill you in on Symfony's security features, which enable you to query encrypted data without ever even needing to decrypt it on your MongoDB database server. You can code along and home and build your own secure personal finance app while applying these new concepts. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-secure-web-applications-with-php-symfony-and-mongodb/

4. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview Ania Kubów. She's a software engineer and a prolific programming teacher on YouTube. She shares tips for how to keep your focus and expand your skills in today's increasingly distracting world. She's passionate about building games, and has lots of advice for getting into GameDev by using JavaScript-based browser games as an entry point. We also talk about the JS13k competition that she judges each year, where devs build entire games that fit within just 13 kilobytes. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-focus-on-building-your-skills-when-everythings-so-distracting-with-ania-kubow-podcast-187/

5. I also recommend reading this quick post by a freeCodeCamp community member on the importance of Hackathons. They opened all sorts of doors for him in his job search. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/why-every-student-should-join-hackathons/

Quote of the Week: "My worry is that with AI now people just stop learning the fundamentals. But then how do you fully understand something, really? You should definitely still learn the fundamentals before using all these AI tools." — Software Engineer Ania Kubów, who has taught some of YouTube's most popular LLM-focused courses, on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

September 6, 2025

1. Learn about AI-assisted coding from a software engineer who's maintained freeCodeCamp's platform and infrastructure for the past 7 years. Mrugesh was initially skeptical of AI tools but has recently used them to great effect. And he wrote this handbook to help you do the same. He says experienced developers can complete tasks faster with AI assistance. But they need to know how to use these tools effectively. And they also need strong foundational programming skills. This handbook is a no-nonsense guide to emerging tools and best practices. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-become-an-expert-in-ai-assisted-coding-a-handbook-for-developers/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a course on building your own AI agent from scratch using Python. You'll implement the agentic loop. Then you'll endow your agent with the ability to read, write, and execute code. Finally, you'll supervise your agent as it goes through and makes fixes to an intentionally buggy codebase. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-an-ai-coding-agent-in-python/

3. For this week's podcast, I've changed the format. I now start off the show with a few minutes of freeCodeCamp community updates and useful news about programming. Then I do a shorter, more focused interview with a software engineer. This week I talk with Ankur Tyagi, a freelance developer and prolific contributor to freeCodeCamp's open source learning resources. He's worked at Volvo, Barclays, Accenture, and other multinationals. He shares his own tips for leveraging AI tools, and why he doesn't think they'll result in fewer jobs for devs. He also has tons of tips for running your own developer consultancy. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-ai-as-an-accelerator-not-a-crutch-with-freelance-engineer-ankur-tyagi-podcast-186/

4. The freeCodeCamp community also just published our first-ever Mandarin Chinese course. It's aimed at absolute beginners. It'll teach you fundamentals of the language and help you prepare for the standardized HSK exam. As you may recall, we've published beginner courses on Spanish and German as well. We eventually hope to have courses on a wide range of world languages at many levels of proficiency. I started learning Mandarin 23 years ago and I can tell you this course just scratches the surface. But it should be a good starting point for you if you're curious. (11 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-mandarin-chinese-for-beginners-full-hsk-1-level/

5. Learn the graph algorithms that power Netflix's video recommendation engine and Google Maps' routing logic. This Python tutorial will introduce you to Breadth-First Search, Depth-First Search, Dijkstra’s Algorithm, and other key computer science concepts. It includes plenty of code examples to help you understand these powerful programming structures. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/graph-algorithms-in-python-bfs-dfs-and-beyond/

Quote of the Week: "To build any complex software, you need a lot of good engineers. You need engineers who can think about problems. You need engineers who can drill down into your own tasks and your own use cases." — Software Engineer Ankur Tyagi on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

August 30, 2025

1. The freeCodeCamp community just published this Python Machine Learning course where you'll learn how to control a robotic arm using computer vision. You'll set up serial communication between Python and a cheap Arduino microcontroller board. Then you'll learn how to detect physical objects using the open source Python libraries MediaPipe and OpenCV. You'll also learn how to manipulate servo motors and LED displays. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/use-arduinos-for-computer-vision/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a course that will help you prepare for the Google Professional Cloud Architect Certification exam. Andrew Brown is a CTO who has passed practically every DevOps exam under the sun, and he teaches this course. You'll learn about Infrastructure as Code, Serverless Architecture, networking, monitoring, logging, and more. (16 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/prepare-for-the-google-professional-cloud-architect-certification-exam-and-pass/

3. Three.js is a powerful 3D rendering tool that tons of artists use to build games and interactive experiences that can run right inside a browser. This new freeCodeCamp course will walk you through building 5 practical projects. You'll learn about foundational concepts before moving on to textures, dynamic particle effects, and interactive physics. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/create-3d-web-experiences-with-javascript-and-threejs/

4. On this week's podcast, I interview Emmett Naughton, a software engineer who taught himself programming over several years while working as a janitor at a hospital. He talks about making ends meet while raising a family and recovering from getting laid off twice. He also shares how discovering he had sleep apnea and treating it dramatically improved his thinking. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-hospital-janitor-to-developer-with-emmett-naughton-podcast-185/

5. The Bag of Words algorithm is an important method that machine learning engineers have used to turn text into numbers so they can train their models. This tutorial will teach you how Bag of Words works, using Python code examples. It also describes the limitations of Bag of Words, and how scientists have gone on to create Word2Vec, GloVe, and other algorithms for mapping the relationships between words. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-bag-of-words-works/

Quote of the Week: "I was mopping floors in an outpatient surgical recovery room listening to the Code Newbies podcast when I first heard an interview with Quincy." — Software Engineer Emmett Naughton on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, sharing how he discovered the freeCodeCamp community and dove deeper into programming

August 23, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published our first-ever chess course, taught by a software engineer on our team who has an ELO rating of 2285, putting him among top competitive players. Ihechikara Abba will teach you how to think strategically and checkmate your opponents. This beginner-level course starts off with algebraic chess notation and identifying the squares. Then you'll learn several endgame patterns. We published both a handbook and an accompanying YouTube course for you to reference and share with your friends. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/checkmate-patterns-in-chess-for-beginners

2. freeCodeCamp also published this comprehensive course on how to build your own AI shopping agent. Software Engineer Ania Kubów will teach you how to use Node, LangChain's LangGraph, Gemini, MongoDB, and other popular tools to build your agent. By the end of this course, your agent will be able to autonomously perceive, plan, act, and respond to your users. It will also be able to decide when it has enough information to respond, and when it needs to first reach out for external information by searching product databases. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/building-an-ai-powered-e-commerce-chat-assistant-with-mongodb/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview a developer who dropped out of college and worked as a park ranger, preventing Yogi Bear from stealing pic-a-nic baskets. In all seriousness, he performed important preservation work and even hiked the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail. He shares tips for learning programming even when you have no money, and how to surround yourself with ambitious peers who can help you learn faster. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-drop-out-to-backpacker-to-self-taught-developer-with-dominick-monaco-podcast-183/

4. Alibaba just dropped the latest version of their Qwen LLM and already the freeCodeCamp community has a comprehensive course on how to train it from scratch. You'll learn about its architecture, Training Hyperparameters, Muon Optimization, RoPE Positional Embeddings, inference, text generation, and more. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/code-and-train-qwen3-from-scratch/

5. Learn the field of System Design from a dev who applies the principles both to software development and to his day-to-day life. You'll learn about scalability issues, the CAP Theorem, Caching & CDNs, Rate Limiting, and other key concepts. (50 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-key-system-design-principles-behind-high-traffic-platforms-like-gaming-and-job-discovery/

Quote of the Week: "Big change happens in small increments. Big change is possible with really small, consistent effort." — Software Engineer Dominick Monaco on how he iterated his way to working as a developer over time, on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

August 16, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published this full length book on how to architect a database using SQL and relational database management systems. This book is aimed at beginners, and includes a Jupyter Notebook you can interact with as you follow along. It will teach you Postgres and a bit of SQL. Then you'll learn how to design and maintain efficient, secure databases that support complex data-driven apps. (Full length book): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-design-structured-database-systems-using-sql-full-book/

2. freeCodeCamp also published this comprehensive data science course on Time Series Forecasting with Python. You'll learn about key Time Series components like trend, seasonality, and residuals. You'll start by building some baseline models. Then you'll dive into Cross-Validation, Exogenous Features, Prediction Interval Generation, and more. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-time-series-forecasting-in-python/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Edidiong Asikpo about her journey from medical school into software engineering. She talks about Nigeria's tech scene, how to break into tech when you live outside the Silicon Valley ecosystem, and how she transitioned from mobile app development to DevOps. Tons of actionable tips here. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/abandoning-med-school-to-become-a-software-engineer-with-edidiong-asikpo-podcast-182/

4. freeCodeCamp also published this in-depth guide to passing the Google Cloud Associate Engineer certification exam. Andrew Brown will teach you about Infrastructure as Code, Serverless, Google Kubernetes Engine, data storage solutions, and more. If you're interested in a career in DevOps, take a gander. (11 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/pass-the-google-cloud-associate-cloud-engineer-exam/

5. Learn how the popular Next.js web development framework handles caching and rendering. This course uses the latest version of Next.js – version 15. It will teach you all about Static Site Generation, Server-Side Rendering, Incremental Static Regeneration, and other important concepts. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-nextjs-15-caching-and-rendering/

Quote of the Week: "To this day, I remember when my first open source pull request got merged. It was one of the best days of my life. I was so, so happy. I couldn't believe that a code contribution that I made was now part of an application used by thousands of people." — Software Engineer Edidiong Asikpo on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

August 9, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive beginner course on modern Front End Development using React and Tailwind CSS. You can code along at home and build your own React project. Along the way, you'll learn about component-based development, utility-first styling, state management, and more. By the end of the course, you’ll have foundational knowledge that you can use to build more of your app ideas. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-react-and-tailwind-css-for-front-end-development/

2. Learn about Zero-Trust Architecture and how to implement it. “Trust no one, verify everything.” That's the approach that these authentication systems take to minimize risk of intrusion or attack. This security tutorial will teach you about Role-Based Access Control, JWT Token Management, Continuous Verification, and other approaches to architecting your apps. (50 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-implement-zero-trust-authentication-in-your-web-apps/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview Dilip Krishnamoorthi. He's a senior software engineer who works at Sony building user interfaces for Playstation game consoles. We talk about how he dropped out of a traditional Indian university and used an inexpensive distance learning program to finish his engineering degree for about the cost of a Playstation 5. He also shares what it's like to work in Bengaluru – the Silicon Valley of Asia – and contrasts that with San Francisco where he now works. Dilip loves learning new tools and shares his thoughts on AI agents and tips for keeping up with the state of the art. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/senior-playstation-engineers-tips-for-learning-new-tools-and-getting-things-done-podcast-184/

4. freeCodeCamp also published this handbook on how to leverage React and Next.js streaming functionality to turbo-charge your app loading speeds for your users. Instead of waiting for the server to send one big bundle of HTML, streaming lets you progressively send blocks as others finish rendering. This makes your app feel much smoother. If you're serious about performance and user experience, this is the handbook for you. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-nextjs-15-streaming-handbook/

5. And if you want to go even deeper into React, freeCodeCamp also published this advanced handbook on Shared State Complexity. What happens when several different parts of your app need to access and update the same information at the same time? This handbook breaks down several approaches to addressing this fundamental problem. You'll learn about State Management, The Context API, Prop Drilling, and more. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/shared-state-complexity-in-react-handbook/

Quote of the Week: "History has taught us: never underestimate the amount of money, time, and effort someone will expend to thwart a security system. It's always better to assume the worst. Assume your adversaries are better than they are. Assume science and technology will soon be able to do things they cannot yet. Give yourself a margin for error. Give yourself more security than you need today. When the unexpected happens, you'll be glad you did." — Bruce Schneier, software engineer and security expert

August 2, 2025

1. Don't be content merely knowing how algorithms work – understand WHY they work the way they do. freeCodeCamp just published this advanced Python course that will level up your computer science knowledge. CS Professor Qiang Hao will help you refine your algorithmic thinking and your intuition for translating abstract mathematics into working code. He touches on Sorting Algorithms, Divide-and-Conquer Algorithms, Amortized Analysis, the Master Theorem, and more. Put your thinking cap on and dive in. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/algorithm-analysis-deep-dive/

2. Learn Object-Oriented Design Patterns using Java. This interactive course built by prolific freeCodeCamp contributor and computer science professor Dr. Mark Mahoney will teach you the Composite Pattern, the Observer Pattern, the Visitor Pattern, and more. (interactive course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/object-oriented-design-patterns-with-java/

3. freeCodeCamp also published this comprehensive course on cloud-based AI engineering. AWS software engineer Suman Debnath will teach you all about LLM Embeddings, RAG, Multimodal Models, and LangChain-powered Agents. You'll build an end-to-end app that automates insurance claims: claim creation, document management, data retrieval, and more using a variety of AWS services including Bedrock. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-enterprise-ai-embeddings-rag-and-multimodal-agents-using-amazon-nova-and-bedrock/

4. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview Nick Taylor, a Montreal-based software engineer and prolific open source contributor. He shares tips on getting started contributing to open source projects, and then converting that track record into job opportunities. He also talks about the changing nature of working in tech, and how he gets mileage out of both emerging AI tools and time-tested open source libraries. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-turn-open-source-into-a-job-with-nick-taylor-podcast-181/

5. And if you're already working as a developer and are keen to climb the ladder at your organization, this is the article for you. freeCodeCamp contributor Shruti Kapoor wrote this detailed guide to progressing from Senior Engineer up to Staff Engineer. She shares her own journey upward at big tech companies. Then she breaks down the differences in engineering roles and the typical promotion process. She shares practical tips for evaluating your own readiness and building a portfolio of work that will impress your higher-ups. (25 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-get-promoted-from-senior-to-staff-engineer-tips-from-my-experience/

Quote of the Week: “The real skill for working with AI is communication. If you can’t explain precisely what you want, the tool will churn out junk. Soft skills suddenly matter a lot.” — Software Engineer Nick Taylor on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

July 25, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a new course that will teach you how to gracefully answer common LeetCode-style questions you'll get asked during developer job interviews. It covers essential data structures and algorithmic patterns. You'll build up your intuition so you can recognize which patterns to apply, and how to avoid brute force solutions. You'll start by learning fundamental data structures like Arrays, Sets, and Hashmaps. Then you'll bust out Python and learn about Big O Notation, before moving on to more advanced concepts like Sliding Windows, Binary Search, Backtracking, and Priority Queues. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/data-structure-and-algorithm-patterns-for-leetcode-interviews/

2. And if you want to go much deeper into Python Machine Learning, this week we also published a comprehensive Computer Vision course. You'll use the open source PyTorch library to implement one of the most influential convolutional neural networks: Visual Geometry Group Networks (VGGNets). You'll learn the theoretical origins of VGGNets and the math that powers them. Then you'll fire up Colab and start implementing one for yourself. Whenever you're looking for courses on advanced topics like this, remember to use freeCodeCamp's search bar. We have thousands of tutorials, books, and full-length courses like this. (5 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/implement-vgg-from-scratch-with-pytorch-deep-learning-theory/

3. Want to get a developer job? Be shameless. That's the advice of this week's freeCodeCamp podcast guest, Namanh Kapur. He's a senior software engineer at LinkedIn and has a ton of hot takes on where the field is heading. He shares tips for how to interact with recruiters, which foundational developer skills he thinks you should prioritize learning, and how to get hired in what he calls the “post-LeetCode world.” (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/we-are-truly-in-the-hackathon-era-namanh-kapur-interview-podcast-180/

4. Not every codebase is run by a team of developers. A lot of projects are built by a single person who's just iterating on their ideas and trying to find customers. That's where this week's Ultimate Tool Stack for Indie Hackers comes in. Manish breaks down a lot of Lean Startup Methodology and translates it into specific tools you can use to quickly build the first version of your products. He covers prototyping tools, payment gateway tools, analytics, and more. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/ultimate-tool-stack-for-indie-hackers/

5. freeCodeCamp also published this quick guide for more experienced developers. It shares some practical tips for incorporating AI tools into your day-to-day programming workflows. Author Spruce Emmanuel doesn't pull any punches or sugar-coat any of his observations about the utility of these tools or the future of manually writing most code. (12 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-ai-effectively-in-your-dev-projects/

Quote of the Week: “Let's get one thing straight: AI is here to help, not to replace. Your job, my job, was never just to write code. Writing code was always just a part of it. Our real job is to build software solutions that work.” — Spruce Emmanuel, developer and prolific freeCodeCamp contributor, in his article on incorporating AI tools into your software development workflows

July 18, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published this comprehensive guide to AI app security and the most common vulnerabilities. You'll learn about Threat Modeling, Prompt Injection, Data Poisoning, supply chain risks, and more. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-how-to-build-security-into-ai/

2. JavaScript is the most popular language on the planet. But it's also super duper prone to errors. Luckily, freeCodeCamp just dropped this comprehensive handbook to help you understand how JavaScript's error handling works. You'll learn about Try-Catch, Error Rethrowing, the Finally keyword, and the Error Object itself. We also show tons of example code that you can scrutinize and learn from. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-javascript-error-handling-handbook/

3. On this week's podcast, I interview a developer who had to apply to 800 jobs, but eventually landed one. Braydon Coyer started out building mobile apps in high school. At one point his iPhone game even out-sold Angry Birds for a day or two. He shares tons of strategies for applying for developer roles, sane ways to integrate AI into your developer workflows, and how to switch from mobile app dev to full stack dev. This dude is a blast. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/799-rejections-but-he-got-the-job-braydon-coyer-developer-interview-podcast-179/

4. I'm a huge fan of data visualization, and I love me some D3.js. So I was jazzed about this new course that'll help you shore up your Data Viz fundamentals. You'll go from bare-bones scatter plots to dynamically updating charts with fancy animations. If you want to learn how to make your data more accessible and more fun, this course is for you. (90 minute YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-interactive-data-visualization-with-svelte-and-d3/

5. As you may know, freeCodeCamp is a big open source project. And we have tons of developers who jump in to help us improve our curriculum and our codebase. But it's common for many of them to lose steam and drop off the map. This guide will help ensure that this doesn't happen to you. It'll give you actionable tips for setting open source goals, finding the right projects to get involved in, engaging with fellow devs, and more. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-a-sustainable-open-source-contribution-routine/

Quote of the Week: "When I was learning to code, the big picture didn’t click until I needed to solve real problems. That’s when variables and arrays started making sense — not in theory, but in practice." — Software Engineer Braydon Coyer on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

July 11, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published this comprehensive course that will teach you how to build apps using the LAMP Stack – Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. This is a classic toolchain that a huge number of websites still use to this day. You can code along at home and build your own clone of Google Calendar – complete with multi-appointment support and booking conflict logic. Then you'll use JavaScript to add a dynamic user interface. This project will help you expand your horizons and get in some serious reps. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-google-calendar-clone-with-php-mysql-and-javascript/

2. You may have heard the term “vibe coding”, where you write the specifications for your app, then hand it over to code generation agents who write the code for you. This approach has been a bit polarizing in the developer community, with vocal critics and vocal advocates. My advice is don't listen to any of them. Think for yourself. freeCodeCamp just published this course that will introduce you to vibe coding tools like n8n – an open source workflow automation tool – so you can wire together APIs and services without needing to write a ton of code manually. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-vibe-code-with-help-from-n8n/

3. On this week's podcast I interview Joe Hill. He's a software engineer who works on a data platform for NASA. Joe taught himself programming for 4 years while working as a janitor. As the single father of two Autistic boys, he first used his programming skills to build an iPad app to help them learn how to talk. He shares tons of practical tips for learning new skills and for getting things done inside big orgs. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-freecodecamp-to-nasa-with-data-engineer-joe-hill-podcast-178/

4. Learn how to write Python tests so you can make your codebase more robust. This tutorial will teach you the basics of pytest and show you tons of examples. You'll learn about Markers, Fixtures, Parameterization, and more. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-pytest-a-guide-to-testing-in-python/

5. Tell your gardener friends: freeCodeCamp just published a tutorial on how to monitor the moisture of your soil using an Arduino microcontroller. This tutorial will show you what hardware to get and how to wire it up. Then it'll walk you through the code you'll run, and explain how everything works. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-a-resistive-soil-moisture-sensor/

Quote of the Week: "Becoming tool agnostic is one of the biggest strengths you will ever have as a programmer. If you walk into a place and they say "we use XYZ", you can go “Great. I'll learn it." That is so powerful." — Software Engineer Joe Hill on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

July 6, 2025

1. We just published a full-length interactive book by computer science professor and freeCodeCamp contributor Dr. Mark Mahoney. It will teach you the foundations of both back end and front end web development. You'll learn some Node, Express, SQLite, GraphQL, Web Components, React, and more. Mark even built his own open source “code playback” system to walk you through the book's code step-by-step with detailed explanations. Pretty cool. (full interactive book): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/an-animated-introduction-to-web-development-from-back-to-front/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a comprehensive guide to the Google Cloud Cybersecurity Certificate exam. You'll learn the basics of being a Cloud Security Analyst such as System Safeguarding, Risk Management, and Threat Analysis. (10 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/beginners-guide-to-cloud-cybersecurity/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Back End engineer Tai Groot about Go, TypeScript, and Rust. We dive into the Developer Experience VS Performance tradeoffs of each of these programming languages. One piece of advice Tai shares: Rust is a superb language for rewriting an older codebase... but never use it to write your first version of something new. He also shares tips for running open source projects, and for senior engineers who want to mentor new devs who are entering the field. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/rust-vs-go-vs-typescript-which-back-end-language-is-for-you-with-tai-groot-podcast-176/

4. The freeCodeCamp community uses Flutter to build our Android and iOS apps. It's a great way to maintain several apps with a single codebase. And one of the most important features developers get out of a mobile app is Local Notifications. This comprehensive tutorial will show you how to use the open source Awesome Notifications library to share updates with your users and remind them of time-sensitive events in your app. (40 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-local-notifications-in-flutter/

5. Finally, did you know that JavaScript is now one of the most popular languages for writing games? You can build some pretty sophisticated experiences that run right in a browser. This guide will walk you through five powerful JS libraries you can use to simplify your game development workflow and get your game in front of players as quickly as possible. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/javascript-frameworks-for-game-developers/

Quote of the Week: "Running an open source project taught me more about software design and communication than any job I’ve had. You have to think about every decision from the perspective of a stranger reading your code." — Software Engineer Tai Groot on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

June 29, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a new handbook on how to build your own custom Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. The entire MCP paradigm was just invented 7 months ago, so let me explain how it works. Before MCP, you needed to write custom connector code for each data source your LLM used – such as calendars, map APIs, and sensor data streams. Sure – tools like LangChain helped with this. But MCP makes things so much simpler. You just lay out how your data is structured. That way when an LLM connects, it can figure out how to get whatever data it needs all on its own. This MCP approach is an excellent complement to the Retrieval Augmented Generation technique developers were using last year. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-a-custom-mcp-server-with-typescript-a-handbook-for-developers/

2. Many of the recent breakthroughs in AI tools have been thanks to the Transformer Architecture pioneered at Google. This course will teach you how Transformers work, and how they're evolving. You'll learn about Attention Mechanisms, Positional Encoding, Activation Functions, and Normalization. Transformers! More than meets the eye! (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-the-evolution-of-the-transformer-architecture-used-in-llms/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview Kelly Vaughn. She's a software engineer who went from building apps for freelance clients to running her own full-blown developer agency. She shares tips for scaling up your business in your community and not burning yourself out in the process. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-therapist-to-six-figure-freelance-dev-podcast-176/

4. Learn how to build your own embedded systems – from smart fridges to home security systems. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive handbook that will teach you Firmware Design from the ground up. You'll learn about the Sense-Process-Act cycle that governs the behavior of most devices. Then you'll learn about low-level system design and modern best practices. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-embedded-systems-firmware-basics-handbook-for-devs/

5. Finally, freeCodeCamp also published our first-ever course on the German language. Learn how to speak the native language of more than 100 million Europeans with this A1-level course for absolute beginners. You'll learn grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, and a ton of common phrases you can use while traveling. (12 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-to-speak-german/

Quote of the Week: "There’s a difference between freelancing and running an agency. Freelancing is a hustle. Running an agency is about systems, people, and risk." — Software Engineer Kelly Vaughn on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

June 21, 2025

1. The freeCodeCamp community just released three new sections of our Certified Full Stack Developer curriculum: React Hooks and State, Testing, and Performance. These include dozens of lectures, workshops, and interactive labs. As you progress through the coursework, you'll build your own fully playable Tic Tac Toe game, color picker, and more. We'll continue to publish the remaining modules throughout 2025. If you start the curriculum now, you can be one of the first people to earn the cert when we add the final exam and capstone project in early 2026. (fully interactive curriculum): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-react-in-your-browser-freecodecamp-full-stack-curriculum-mid-2025-update/

2. freeCodeCamp also published this comprehensive course that will help you earn the Google Cloud Data Analytics certificate. You'll learn about SQL, BigQuery, data visualization, data lakehouse architecture, and more. (10 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/beginners-guide-to-cloud-data-analytics/

3. Logic and reason underpin all of software development. And this freeCodeCamp handbook will teach you how to think critically when testing your code. You'll learn how to use Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens, Contrapositives, Truth Tables, and other philosophical tools to map out all the places where your software can go off the rails. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-logic-philosophy-and-science-of-software-testing-handbook-for-developers/

4. Learn the fundamentals of data communication and networking in this new freeCodeCamp handbook. You'll learn about routing, switching, Network Topologies, the seven layers of the OSI Model, and more. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-data-communication-and-networking-handbook/

5. Finally, you may practice good operational security on your laptop. But what about your phone? This quick article will give you some practical tips for locking down your phone. (7 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-improve-your-phones-privacy/

Quote of the Week: "A top coder sees a program graphically. A data structure as a hierarchy of relationships, a program as a network of data pipes. The first and only time they reduce pictures to words is when they write code." — Robert Wagner, Programmer and Computer Science professor

June 14, 2025

1. Learn how to build your own full-stack JavaScript apps. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course on the popular MERN Stack. MERN stands for MongoDB, Express.js, React, and Node.js. These are the key tools that a lot of modern web apps use, including freeCodeCamp's platform itself. You'll learn how to build your user interface, handle data routing, and even rate-limit your back end API – so you can stop your app from getting overwhelmed by all those bots out there that are scraping the web for LLM training data. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-the-mern-stack-in-2025/

2. Learn MLOps by building your own system that can run sentiment analysis on YouTube videos. The emerging field of ML Ops is a hybrid of Machine Learning and System Administration (AKA Ops). This comprehensive course will give you a solid project-oriented intro to MLOps. You'll learn about Data Preprocessing, AI Model Benchmarking, Hyperparameter Tuning, Ensemble Techniques and more. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-mlops-by-creating-a-youtube-sentiment-analyzer/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview former CTO and prolific programming teacher Hitesh Choudhary. He shares lessons he's learned from personally mentoring dozens of software engineers over the years. He also talks about India's higher education system. And he gives tons of tips for managing your time as a developer. I had a blast learning from Hitesh and I think you will, too. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-electrical-engineering-student-to-cto-with-hitesh-choudhary-podcast-175/

4. freeCodeCamp published a new handbook on the emerging architecture paradigm of Micro Frontends. You'll learn why this approach is gaining so much steam among software engineers. This handbook will teach you all about Module Federation, Cross-Window Messaging, the Shadow DOM, and more. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/complete-micro-frontends-guide/

5. And we published a handbook on Apple's code signing process. If you want to publish mobile apps in the Apple store, this handbook is a real lifesaver. It would have saved freeCodeCamp's team a ton of time when we were publishing the freeCodeCamp iOS app. We're going to publish a lot more hyper-specific handbooks like this in the future to make developers' lives a bit easier. Bookmark this and you can come back to it when you're ready to publish your first app. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/apple-code-signing-handbook/

Quote of the Week: "You will not get opportunities unless you prove yourself first. And for proving yourself, there is no hiring manager coming to your door and saying, ‘Hey, please build something for me.’ You have to prove it by contributing to open source." — Software Engineer and programming teacher Hitesh Choudhary, on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

June 7, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published our first-ever chemistry course. Over the years we've published hundreds of courses on math and computer science, and we're gradually adding other academic subjects as well. This is an excellent starting point for beginners, and a great refresher for folks who want to get back into learning chemistry. Chad, the instructor, has taught chemistry for more than 15 years. He'll teach you the absolute basics of matter, chemical bonding, and scientific notation. Then you'll dive into more intermediate topics like thermodynamics, kinetics, and electrochemistry. (35 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/general-chemistry-college-course/

2. Learn low-level game development by building your own Candy Crush-style match-3 video game using the C programming language. That's right – instead of using a powerful game engine like Unreal or Unity 3D, you're going to use some of the most fundamental tools imaginable. You'll implement the core game logic, detect player input, and even add bursts of animation using the Raylib graphics library. This is a fun way to spend an afternoon while getting reps with the world's most widely run language. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/c-game-development-with-raylib/

3. On this week's podcast, I interview software engineer and O'reilly programming book author Joe Attardi about the many changes he's seen during his 21 years in industry. He talks about how AI tools are changing development, and how he thinks devs with a strong foundation in computer science are best positioned to fully leverage these tools. Joe's one chill, humble dude. I had a blast learning from him. And I think you will, too. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-survive-in-tech-when-everythings-changing-w-21-year-veteran-dev-joe-attardi-podcast-174/

4. freeCodeCamp published a couple handbooks this week, too. This first one will teach you how to build your own AI agents using open source tools like LangChain and LangGraph. You'll learn about automation workflows, agent loops, multi-agent collaboration, and more. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-open-source-llm-agent-handbook/

5. And this second handbook will take you on a deep dive into the world of Front End Monitoring. You'll learn how to collect performance data, error data, user behavior data, then make sense of these insights through modern reporting tools. If you're serious about leveling up your full stack development skills, I think you'll find this to be well worth reading. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-front-end-monitoring-handbook/

Quote of the Week: "Computer Science fundamentals are more important than ever. As a software engineer, I want to understand things. I don’t like just taking stuff at face value. I want to know why it works and what’s going on behind the scenes." — 21-year industry veteran Joe Attardi on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

May 30, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a full course to help you learn Python for Data Science. This beginner's course covers popular Python libraries like Pandas, NumPy, and scikit-learn. First you'll learn how to configure your development environment. Then you'll dive in and practice key skills like Data Extraction, Dataframe Concatenation, Data Visualization, and even some basic Machine Learning. (17 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-python-for-data-science-full-course

2. freeCodeCamp also published a full-length handbook that you can read right in your browser on the emerging field of Agentic AI Systems. Agents can go out and attempt tasks in the real world for you. Think of a shopping agent that knows your shoe size and preferences, and tries to find you the best deal on bowling shoes. You'll also learn how these systems use planning and goal setting rather than predefined actions. You can code along at home with the handbook and by the end of it, you'll have your own simple Python and LangChain-powered agent. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-agentic-ai-handbook/

3. On this week's podcast I interview a senior dev who was just laid off last week at Microsoft, and he walks us through everything. He has nerves of steel and seems totally unfazed by his coming job search. He talks about the role that both long-term planning and daily trail running have played in giving him resilience. It's clear to me that he's taken the time to prepare himself and his family for just about anything. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/laid-off-but-not-afraid-with-x-senior-microsoft-dev-mackevin-fey-podcast-173/

4. If you're traveling this summer, you might benefit from reading this guide on how attackers most commonly use technology to exploit travelers. You'll learn how to defend yourself against fake wi-fi networks, phony travel sites, shady SIM card vendors, ATM skimming, and more. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-attackers-target-travelers-and-how-to-defend-yourself/

5. Learn how to run an inexpensive Raspberry Pi computer in “Headless Mode”. Instead of functioning like a traditional computer with a keyboard, mouse, and screen, you can set up your Pi to perform tasks in the background, then access it remotely through a network protocol like Secure Shell (SSH). This way you can have a dedicated home automation server or a surveillance system. This tutorial will walk you through everything you need to know to get your headless server online. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-your-raspberry-pi-headlessly-with-vs-code-and-ssh/

Quote of the Week: "One of the things I love about computers is there are so many different rungs on the ladder of abstraction. And each layer has its own interesting challenges. When I moved from Intel to Microsoft, I went from very low-level hardware-adjacent development to cloud development at internet scale. But everything I had learned earlier helped me ramp up quickly at that higher level of abstraction." — MacKevin Fey on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

May 23, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a course on building AI agents using the open source LangChain LangGraph Python framework. This course will teach you fundamental Agentic AI concepts like Elements, Type Annotations, and Retrieval Augmented Generation. You can code along at home, and by the end of the course you'll have built 5 different agents you can show to your friends. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-langgraph-and-build-conversational-ai-with-python/

2. freeCodeCamp also published this comprehensive guide to Relational Database Management Systems. You'll learn key database architecture concepts and how to diagram them. You'll also learn about Relational Algebra, Data Normalization, Schema Design, SQL Queries, and more. (9 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/master-database-management-systems/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview a developer from Iraq about her journey into tech. She has managed to build out her professional reputation through live-streaming herself participating in online coding and data science competitions. She shares tips for making friends with other developers – even when you're living far away from tech hubs like Silicon Valley. (90 minute watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-make-developer-friends-when-you-dont-live-in-silicon-valley-with-iraqi-engineer-codelife-podcast-172/

4. Learn what JavaScript Linting is and how it helps you write better code. This tutorial will also teach you about Abstract Syntax Trees and why they're so useful for representing code. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-javascript-lint-rules-work-and-why-abstract-syntax-trees-matter/

5. I'm thrilled to announce that freeCodeCamp just published our first-ever course on a world language. This full-length Spanish for Beginners course will teach you basic grammar and vocabulary so you can speak at a CEFR A1 Level. The instructor has more than 17 years of experience teaching Spanish to beginners. ¡Vámonos! (9 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-a1-level-spanish/

Quote of the Week: "I had never coded before I started my Computer Science degree. I felt behind compared to my peers. But I started searching online. I found freeCodeCamp. Just being able to write code in the browser and see the output – that was what made coding feel practical and doable." — Iraqi Software Engineer Code;Life on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

May 16, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course that will help you learn modern Android app development. You'll learn how to use Android Studio alongside the Kotlin language, a popular alternative to coding in Java. The final project involves building a clone of the Uber app – complete with map integration and real-time location tracking. (60 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/master-kotlin-and-android-60-hour-course/

2. And after you're done with that 60 hour course, try this other 60 hour course ;) It's a full-length Generative AI bootcamp led by CTO and AI enthusiast Andrew Brown. You'll learn powerful tools like Juptyer Notebook and Ollama. You'll also get exposure to the latest applied machine learning techniques. This course is designed to be reasonably accessible to non-developers as well, so any curious person can learn how to harness the power of these new tools. (65 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/free-genai-65-hour-bootcamp/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast I interview software engineer and prolific freeCodeCamp contributor Sam Crombie about life in San Francisco startup purgatory. Sam left his job at Microsoft to go through Y Combinator, and is currently trying to find product-market fit as a lone-wolf developer. We discuss how useful AI coding tools really are, tips for getting people to care about your apps, and how parents can help their kids get scholarships for Ivy League schools. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/ditching-a-microsoft-job-to-enter-startup-hell-with-lonewolf-engineer-sam-crombie-podcast-171/

4. Learn how to build web apps faster with Vite, a new JavaScript front end build tool. Vite means quick in French. And this quick course wastes no time in showing you the ropes. You'll learn about Hot Module Replacement, Optimized Dependency Prebundling, Intelligent Caching, and more. (1 hour crash course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-vite-for-a-better-web-development-workflow/

5. Learn how to become a better analytical programmer by analyzing five different JavaScript implementations of the classic Rock-Paper-Scissors game. Along the way, you'll learn how to use visual tools for code comparison, and learn how to diagram codebases using Mermaid.js. I hope this helps you broaden your horizons as a dev and appreciate the many ways you can accomplish simple tasks with code. (2 hour read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-become-an-analytical-programmer-compare-five-projects/

Quote of the Week: "You can do all the user research you want. But at some point, you just need to put your project out there. My biggest false starts came from not launching. I've learned that you can’t just theory-craft forever. You have to actually ship." — Sam Crombie on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, sharing lessons from startup “pivot purgatory"

May 9, 2025

1. Learn Next.js by building your own Dropbox-style file storage app. This beginner-accessible course will help you learn full stack JavaScript using modern tools like React and PostgreSQL. You'll also learn how to design intuitive user interfaces, database schemas, file hierarchies, and more. (5 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/code-a-dropbox-clone-with-nextjs/

2. Kubernetes (often shortened to k8s) is a powerful open source tool for deploying services to the web, then monitoring them and scaling them as needed. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive handbook that will teach you key k8s concepts like Pods, DaemonSets, StatefulSets, and more. If you code along at home, by the end of this handbook you'll deploy an app to a k8s cluster in the cloud. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-kubernetes-handbook-devs-startups-businesses/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Shashi Lo. He's a software engineer at Microsoft who grew up the child of refugees. He dropped out of art school and taught himself programming by building projects for local businesses. He shares techniques he uses to continue to learn skills even while he's busy raising his 4 kids. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-art-school-drop-out-to-microsoft-engineer-with-shashi-lo-podcast-170/

4. Improve your C++ programming skills by building your own audio plugin. freeCodeCamp is proud to publish this intermediate course by a developer and 3x Grammy-nominated producer and saxophone player. You'll learn native app development with the open source JUCE library, which is used in a lot of Digital Audio Workstation apps. (8 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/improve-you-c-skills-by-coding-an-audio-plugin/

5. Finally, freeCodeCamp also published this Front-End Performance Optimization Handbook this week. You'll learn JavaScript tricks to ensure your web apps load quickly. You'll learn how to minimize file size, make fewer server requests, optimize images, and more. There are tons of techniques in here that I hadn't even heard of. This is well worth reading if you're serious about improving your web development skills. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-front-end-performance-optimization-handbook/

Quote of the Week: "An ideal code review would be a small set of code changes that are easy to understand. You can pretty much read the code like a paragraph and understand what’s happening. Smaller pull requests help you avoid regressions, and save time for both the code author and the code reviewer." — Shashi Lo on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, talking about best practices he's learned while working as a dev at Microsoft

May 2, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive Calculus course that will not only teach you math concepts, but will also show you how to implement them in Python code. Math professor Ed Pratowski will teach you college-level calc concepts like Limits, Integrals, Derivatives, Parametric Equations, and more. You can code along at home using Jupyter Notebook to implement these mathematical expressions and interact with them visually. This will help you solidify your understanding of these abstract concepts. (7 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-college-calculus-and-implement-with-python/

2. Python has its own Node.js-style web development framework called Django. And freeCodeCamp just published a crash course that will help you get up and running with it. You'll learn about Django's Model-View-Template design pattern, its admin dashboard, and its “batteries included” design philosophy that makes building web apps relatively straightforward. By the end of this crash course, you will have built your own first Django app. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/django-crash-course-for-beginners

3. freeCodeCamp just published yet another comprehensive handbook by CTO Omer Rosenbaum on how Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) works. Note that even though IPv6 came out 13 years ago, IPv4 still handles a majority of web traffic. This handbook will teach you the basics of how IP addresses work. You'll also learn about Network Addressing Schemes, Packet Fragmentation Handling, Header Fields, Subnet Masks, and more. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-ipv4-works-a-handbook-for-developers/

4. Learn how to build your own DevOps pipeline using 100% freely available open source tools. This intermediate tutorial will show you step-by-step how to configure your cloud environment, set up Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment, and orchestrate your containers. You'll also learn how to secure and monitor everything. (45 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-a-production-ready-devops-pipeline-with-free-tools/

5. Learn how to run multiple virtual machines on a single Linux computer using a tool called a hypervisor. This is helpful for running multiple servers or doing cross-platform testing of your apps. This tutorial will introduce you to Network Bridges, Guest VMs, and the Cockpit VM manager. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/turn-ubuntu-2404-into-a-kvm-hypervisor/

Quote of the Week: “If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.” — technology writer Robert X. Cringely in an old issue of InfoWorld magazine

Apr 25, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive Python course that will walk you through building your own Llama 4-style Large Language Model. You'll learn about the inner workings of LLMs: Transformer Block Architecture, Feedforward Networks, Rotary Positional Embeddings, and the attention mechanism itself. Then you'll build a tokenizer and train a model to generate text. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/code-your-own-llama-4-llm-from-scratch/

2. If all these machine learning terms you keep hearing are confusing or intimidating, no worries. freeCodeCamp just published this crash course that will explain these terms simply with the help of animations. You'll learn about Gradient Descent, Regularization, Decision Trees, and the Transformer model itself. (30 minute YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/essential-machine-learning-concepts-animated/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Tae'lur Alexis about her journey from working at McDonald's to working as a software engineer. She taught herself programming using freeCodeCamp. After 5 years of working as a developer, she started to specialize in information security. And last year she moved overseas to work remotely from Thailand. She has a ton of actionable tips for people who want to start a career in software development, and for experienced devs who want to transition into security. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-fast-food-worker-to-cybersecurity-engineer-with-taelur-alexis-podcast-169/

4. freeCodeCamp just published a JavaScript Array course that covers everything you need to know about the Array data structure. You'll learn methods like push, pop, slice, map, filter, and reduce. You'll even learn about more advanced techniques like flatMap and findLastIndex. This course also includes tons of code examples and comprehension check questions to help you retain everything as you learn it. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/all-about-javascript-arrays/

5. Learn REST API Architecture by building your own movie database app using back-end JavaScript. Representational State Transfer (REST) is the most common architecture for building APIs these days because it allows your server to be stateless. That is, it can serve new requests without any memory of its previous requests. This beginner tutorial will walk you through installing Express, setting up your webserver, configuring routes, and writing to your database. (25 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-rest-api-principles-by-building-an-express-app/

Quote of the Week: “As a developer, you can’t just jump straight to learning security. You have to start with Linux and networking. I had to go back and study how to build servers from scratch, set up a tech stack, and then learn how to break those systems. Building and breaking – it’s a constant cycle. That’s how I really started to understand security.” — Tae'lur Alexis on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, talking about her journey from web developer to security engineer

Apr 18, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course on how to train your own GPT-like Large Language Model from scratch. You'll learn how to use Python libraries to load text data, train a tokenizer, and implement the Transformer architecture. Then you'll pre-train your model and use supervised learning to fine-tune it. By the end of the course, you'll have built your own AI assistant that you can chat with. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/train-your-own-llm/

2. And if you want to go even deeper with Python, we also published a course on data engineering fundamentals. You'll adopt the mindset and best practices of the two senior platform engineers who teach this course. Some of the techniques you'll learn include extracting data from APIs, automatic schema management, incremental loading, and how to orchestrate scalable workflows. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/data-loading-with-python-and-ai

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Alyson La who used freeCodeCamp to teach herself how to program while working as an accountant. She was able to transition to a data analyst role and ultimately became a data engineer at GitHub. After one of her kids was diagnosed with Autism, she stepped away from her career for 3 years. She now teaches other women how to re-enter the workforce through a charity called Tech Moms. She shares a ton of practical advice for anyone interested in building more technical skills. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-accountant-to-data-engineer-with-alyson-la-podcast-168/

4. Laravel is the most popular PHP framework for building web apps. And freeCodeCamp just published an in-depth course on how to learn it. You can code along at home and build your own clone of the Medium blogging website. Along the way, you'll learn Tinker, Breeze, Blade Directives, and more. (7 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-laravel-by-building-a-medium-clone

5. Finally, freeCodeCamp just published this full-length handbook that will teach you all about Serverless Architecture, which simplifies development by letting you focus purely on application code. Psst – serverless is a marketing term and does still involve servers. You'll learn how to set up a Docker image that you can then use with AWS Lambda functions to handle your server requests. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/serverless-architecture-with-aws-lambda/

Quote of the Week: “I worked in spreadsheets. But as a data analyst, I had to learn SQL for the first time. The big transition was going from Excel to accessing a database, writing SQL, and then analyzing the data in a spreadsheet. Understanding how the tables connected, how joins worked – that was the bridge that helped me move further into engineering roles.” — Alyson La on her transition from accountant to data analyst and ultimately data engineer, on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

Apr 11, 2025

1. One of the hardest aspects of building apps in C and C++ is just getting your development environment properly configured. This course will walk you through how to set up key tools like CMake, vcpkg, Git, and Docker. From there, you'll be able to build high-performance apps with granular memory management. This course will put you in a strong position to take full advantage of freeCodeCamp's many other C and C++ for beginners courses. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/c-setup-and-installation-tools-cmake-vcpkg-docker-and-copilot/

2. Lynx is a cross-platform development framework that just became open source a few weeks ago. You can use Lynx to build JavaScript apps that run on all kinds of devices, including Apple and Android phones. It's similar to frameworks like React Native and Flutter. This comprehensive freeCodeCamp course will guide you through setting up your first Lynx project, integrating with APIs, and leveraging its unique dual-thread architecture. You'll code your own game review app while learning to use Lynx's UI components, state management, and navigation implementation. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-lynx-to-create-javascript-mobile-apps/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Jason Lengstorf, who learned to code by building websites for emo bands. Jason dropped out of college but went on to work as a software architect at IBM and other tech companies. He shares his tips for teaching yourself programming by chasing your curiosity. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-drop-out-to-software-architect-with-jason-lengstorf-podcast-167/

4. Wireshark is a popular open source tool that security engineers use to analyze network traffic. This in-depth tutorial will show you how to harness Wireshark's power by filtering packet data so you can understand what's happening in a network and catch bad actors. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/use-wireshark-filters-to-analyze-network-traffic/

5. If you've already learned languages like Python, JavaScript, and C++, and are looking for a new adventure, consider Clojure. It's a functional language based off of Lisp that can also leverage the Java Virtual Machine to run code in parallel. freeCodeCamp just published this comprehensive Clojure primer with interactive challenges that you can solve as you read. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-clojure-programming-basics/

Quote of the Week: “You can't just hang out with other developers – but never build anything – and expect to become a developer. At the same time, you can't just build things – but never deliver them to anybody – and expect to become a developer. You have to do both.” — Jason Lengstorf, self-taught engineer and software architect, on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

Apr 4, 2025

1. Learn how Large Language Models like GPT 4 work – one layer at a time. This freeCodeCamp course will walk you through the new DeepSeek-V3 technical report so you can learn about Multi-Head Latent Attention, Query-Key-Value mechanisms, Mixture of Experts Architecture, Rotary Positional Embeddings, and more. It will help you bridge the gap from understanding the theory to writing the Python code. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/understand-and-code-deepseek-v3/

2. Laravel is the most popular PHP web development framework. And freeCodeCamp just published a crash course where you can code along at home and build your own Instagram clone using Laravel. This course is taught by Beau Carnes, one of freeCodeCamp's most popular instructors. You'll learn some PHP basics and how to harness the power of Laravel's Model-View-Controller architecture. You'll also learn how to configure your development environment, create your data models, set up routing, and test your app. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/code-a-full-stack-instagram-clone-with-laravel-and-mongodb/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Ryan Furrer about his journey from broke musician to software engineer. As you may know, not every guest on my podcast has a PhD from Stanford. Case in point, Ryan dropped out of college and worked as a violin instructor. He spent 5 years teaching himself how to program while working odd jobs and paying down his student debt. He ultimately ramped up with freelance gigs before landing developer jobs. He shares tons of practical insights for mid-career folks who want to break into tech. (90 minute listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-broke-musician-to-working-dev-ryan-furrer-podcast-166/

4. The freeCodeCamp community is on a roll with another awesome handbook – this time on cryptography. You'll learn the history of the RSA cryptosystem and the math that underpins it. You'll also learn about various attacks on the encryption scheme such as Håstad’s Broadcast Attack, the Bleichenbacher Attack, the Malleability Exploit, and the many additions to RSA that have hardened it over the decades. Strong recommend. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-cryptography-handbook-rsa-algorithm/

5. Finally, did you know you could run your own home VPN off of a cheap Raspberry Pi computer? This freeCodeCamp tutorial will walk you through setting up a Tailscale open source mesh VPN for all your internet-connected devices, using the WireGuard protocol. (12 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/set-up-a-home-vpn-using-tailscale-on-a-raspberry-pi/

Quote of the Week: “You don't have to push yourself if you're not comfortable. But there are rewards to be reaped should you figure out a way to put yourself slightly past the threshold of comfort.” — Ryan Furrer, self-taught developer, on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

Mar 28, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published this comprehensive tutorial that will teach you all about Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), and how computers use them to talk to one another. You'll get a full rundown of Clients, Servers, Requests, and Responses. You'll learn about various architectures like REST, SOAP, GraphQL, and gRPC. We've also included tons of diagrams and code examples to help you understand and retain the key concepts. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-api-fundamentals-and-architecture/

2. Lots of people know how to use spreadsheets, but few people know how to use them well. freeCodeCamp just published an Excel crash course that will help you learn the key formulas and functions. It covers Conditional Logic, VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP for searching data, data cleaning methods, common time functions, and more. This is perfect for refreshing your Excel knowledge and learning a few new techniques that you'll inevitably use in the future. (75 minute YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-the-top-excel-formulas-and-functions/

3. On this week's podcast, I interview a developer who didn't get serious about coding until he was 32 years old. Francesco Ciulla says he hated coding and preferred working as a volleyball coach. But he eventually knuckled down and got good at it, and today his code runs on Europe's Copernicus satellites. We talk about his long journey into software engineering, and how even though he's a proud introvert, he's managed to give conference talks and teach fellow developers. (90 minute watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/programming-satellites-at-age-37-with-francesco-ciulla-podcast-165/

4. When you're building Python apps, you don't necessarily need a third-party tool to find performance bottlenecks within your codebase. The Python Standard Library already includes some pretty powerful built-in profiling modules. And this quick freeCodeCamp tutorial will show you how to leverage them. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-pythons-built-in-profiling-tools-examples-and-best-practices/

5. And if you're looking for a fun project idea to practice your Python skills, you can code along at home with this tutorial and do some data analysis on your own YouTube metrics. Even if you just have a single cat video uploaded, that's enough data to play with. You'll learn how to use Jupyter Notebook, Pandas, Seaborn, and Matplotlib. First you'll export your data and run a correlation analysis on it. Then you'll visualize your data using a scatter plot chart. Finally, you'll be able to analyze your audience retention. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/extract-youtube-analytics-data-and-analyze-in-python/

Quote of the Week: “I tried so hard and got so far but in the end git push --force origin master” — Francesco Ciulla, software engineer and guest on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast (In case you didn't get the reference, it's a Linkin Park joke)

Mar 22, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published this project-based course that will help you learn modern web development tools like Next.js, Supabase, and shadcn. You can code along at home and build your own note taking app that integrates with the OpenAI API, so you can have conversations with GPT about your notes. By the end of the course, you'll have deployed your own working app to the cloud that you and your friends can use for taking notes. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-full-stack-ai-note-taking-app-with-nextjs-and-supabase/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a full-length handbook that will teach you the fundamentals of web accessibility. This way you'll be able to make your projects more usable by people who are living with disabilities. You'll learn about Semantic HTML and ARIA attributes. You'll then learn how to apply these tools to help people who have color blindness, or even full blindness. You'll also learn how to make your sites more accessible to people who navigate with a keyboard or a voice interface rather than a mouse. As I like to say, good accessibility is just good usability for everybody. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-web-accessibility-handbook/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Jesse Hall. He's a software engineer who taught himself how to code while raising kids and working on the Best Buy Geek Squad fixing people's computers. He grew up in a trailer park in a one-stoplight town. He didn't get serious about coding until his 30s, when freeCodeCamp's curriculum helped him ultimately get a job at a big tech company. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-become-a-self-taught-developer-while-supporting-a-family-podcast-164/

4. As you may know, I spend a lot of time learning world languages. And Large Language Models have been a great tool for me to improve my grammar, usage, and vocabulary. freeCodeCamp just published a course on how to fully leverage LLMs to practice world languages and even prepare for standardized exams. You'll learn AI prompting techniques, memory tricks like the 2-7-30 rule of spaced repetition, and other approaches to turbocharge your progress. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-any-language-with-ai

5. Learn about microcontrollers and how they process sensor data. This beginner's guide will teach you about Software Architecture and Sensor Pipelines. You'll also learn about Analog-to-Digital Converters, Scaling, and how device drivers work. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/connect-read-process-sensor-data-on-microcontrollers-for-beginners/

Quote of the Week: "I always thought that software development was like rocket science. You had to be super smart for that kind of thing. But of course, one day I just went to Google and did a quick search and found Python. I could write a little script, and it would do these things for me. And it shaved an hour off my day every day. And that's what hooked me on software development." — Jesse Hall, self-taught software engineer and guest on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

Mar 15, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published this comprehensive introduction to the JavaScript programming language. JavaScript is the main language used for web development, and you can even use it to build mobile apps. This course will teach you Object Oriented Programming, Functional Programming, and Asynchronous Programming. You'll also learn how to use Node.js and its massive ecosystem of libraries through Node Package Manager. (9 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/javascript-essentials/

2. freeCodeCamp also just published this in-depth handbook on how to become a full stack developer in 2025. Author Prankur Pandey breaks down the key tools that web developers use these days, including DevOps tools. He also shares tips on preparing for coding interviews and the developer job search. He even has a section on how he leverages AI tools to help him get more done as a dev. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/become-a-full-stack-developer-and-get-a-job/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview prolific computer science educator Caleb Curry about his recent experience getting laid off as a developer, and how he succeeded in quickly landing a new role. Caleb recently started mentoring a few dozen people who are getting into the field, and he shares that same advice he's been giving them about focusing on a few key skills and going really deep. Caleb has a ton of tips for how to manage your information diet so you can gradually amass knowledge. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-fewer-skills-but-go-deeper-the-caleb-curry-interview-podcast-163/

4. If you're interested in learning more about how software projects are managed, this tutorial may strike your fancy. You don't need a code editor for this – you can just read along and look at the Python code examples. You'll learn key software design concepts: Problem Statements, Use Cases, Requirements, High Level System Architecture, and how the entire process flows together. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-software-design-basics/

5. One of the most common ways teams build software is through Agile development sprints. This tutorial will give you a quick tour of Sprint Retrospectives, where teams look back on the work they've done over the past few weeks. You'll learn the mechanics of the Start - Stop - Continue approach, and how it can result in better decision making for what to prioritize in subsequent sprints. (12 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-run-a-sprint-retrospective-start-stop-continue-method/

Quote of the Week: "If you're a beginner and you're learning, I would not use AI – at least not right now. I wouldn't use Copilot or any of these tools that basically help you write solutions while you're coding. It's just going to allow you to not learn those things for yourself." — Caleb Curry, software engineer and guest on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

Mar 8, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a new Python Machine Learning course that will teach you the fundamentals of how generative AI systems work. You'll walk away with a grasp of key ML concepts. You'll also understand how working with these types of models is different from writing traditional rule-based software. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-machine-learning-concepts-plus-generative-ai/

2. Learn how to build your own Massively Multiplayer Online game using the same Unity development framework used to build Genshin Impact, Hearthstone, Cuphead, and other games. Beau Carnes is a prolific teacher within the freeCodeCamp community, and he'll show you the moves. You'll start by learning some basic C# programming. Then you'll dive into server and client architecture, game mechanics, and more. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/create-a-simple-mmo-game-in-unity/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Anjana Vakil. After studying computational linguistics and working as a teacher, she started teaching herself how to code in her 30s. She has since worked as a software engineer at tech companies and for freelance clients. She shares her experience as an American developer who lives and works in Europe. She also argues that her skills from her previous career have given her a big edge over her peers. She thinks that career changers often underestimate how much of a boost they'll get from their non-tech domain expertise. I learned a lot from Anjana and I think you will, too. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-become-a-developer-in-your-30s-anjana-vakil-podcast-162/

4. If you want to go even deeper with Python machine learning, consider learning the popular Pytorch library. freeCodeCamp just published this comprehensive intro that will teach you how to use pre-trained models to perform Tabular Data Classification, Image Classification, Audio Classification, and more. This is an excellent primer for aspiring data scientists or machine learning engineers. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-pytorch-in-five-projects

5. The MERN Stack is a pretty standard set of web development tools for building full-stack JavaScript apps. MERN stands for MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js. This tutorial will show you how to set up your development environment by installing Node and its package manager. Then you'll set up your app's front end, back end, and database. By the end of the tutorial, you'll have your own simple To-Do app deployed and running in the cloud. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-a-mern-stack-to-do-app/

Quote of the Week: "The more we can keep ourselves nimble, the better. It's very unlikely that you'll start your software career working in the exact same technology that you'll be working in even a year later — let alone 20 years later." — Anjana Vakil, software engineer and guest on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

Mar 2, 2025

1. Linear Algebra is one of the most important fields of mathematics if you want to build AI systems using modern machine learning techniques. And freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course to help you learn it. You'll review foundational concepts from high school like Cartesian Coordinates and the Pythagorean Theorem. Then you'll dive into more advanced topics like Vectors in High Dimensions, Linear Independence, Normalization, Projections, and more. Don't be daunted by advanced math – you CAN learn it and harness its power for your projects. (10 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-linear-algebra-for-machine-learning/

2. Learn how to build a vision transformer from scratch using Python. Transformers are not just the coolest aliens in cartoon history – they're also the key breakthrough that has allowed engineers to create powerful Large Language Models these past few years. And Transformers are useful for computer vision as well. This course will teach you techniques like Image Pre-processing, Multi-head Attention, Patch Embeddings, and more. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-vision-transformer-from-scratch/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview modern-day renaissance man Vaughn Gene. After struggling with high school, Vaughn joined the US Navy and spent 10 years in Japan. He became fluent in the Japanese language and worked as a personal trainer for locals. He wanted more flexibility in his work, so he used freeCodeCamp to learn to code, then started lining up freelance clients. Along the way, Vaughn has also taught himself guitar, piano, Spanish, and advanced Mixed Martial Arts techniques. He shares his self-teaching heuristics, and how he's able to cultivate so many skills in tandem. I loved learning from him, and I think you will, too. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-go-full-on-renaissance-man-mode-in-2025-with-vaughn-gene-podcast-161/

4. One of the most powerful innovations of the past 30 years – for better or for worse – has been algorithmic recommendation feeds. And as a developer, if you want to build such a Recommender System for your app, you'll first need to overcome what are called Cold Start Problems. This tutorial will explain these challenges and give you conceptual tools for pushing through them. You'll learn about Contextual Data, Preference Collection, Hybrid Filtering, and more. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/cold-start-problem-in-recommender-systems/

5. LaTeX is an open source typesetting tool used to represent mathematical expressions in academic papers. You can also use it to jazz up the typography of your documents. This step-by-step tutorial will teach you how to leverage the power of LaTeX right on your local Windows machine. You'll even learn how to load it into VS Code. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-run-latex-projects-locally-for-free-on-windows/

Quote of the Week: "The more intelligent you are, the more likely you'll worry: what if I learn it the wrong way or the slow way or the suboptimal way? But in worrying like that – all that time we spend worrying - someone else is just going to spend learning the thing. In learning a new skill, the only bad choice you can make is really just doing nothing." — Vaughn Gene, on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

Feb 23, 2025

1. If you want to expand your coding skills, consider learning Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). In this freeCodeCamp handbook, you'll learn about Inheritance, Prototypes, Object Blueprints, and other OOP concepts. Along the way you'll see tons of straightforward JavaScript code examples that you can implement yourself for practice. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-classes-in-javascript-handbook/

2. Learn how to code your own 3D browser games using the popular Three.JS JavaScript library. This step-by-step tutorial will teach you how to build your own browser-playable clone of the Frogger-like game Crossy Road. You'll learn how to render a polygonal map, animate cars, move the player character, detect collisions, and more. (1 hour read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-code-a-crossy-road-game-clone-with-threejs/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview a self-taught software engineer who learned to code in her 30s without spending a single penny. Julia Undeutsch is an accessibility expert who works at a large European company. She talks about how she used freeCodeCamp to learn while working full time. She also shares her adventures in Japan, where she has given many tech talks in Japanese. She's a super warm person and I think you'll enjoy learning from her journey. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/she-taught-herself-coding-at-age-30-for-zero-dollars-podcast-160/

4. Learn Kubernetes for beginners. freeCodeCamp instructor Beau Carnes will teach you how to deploy your own microservice architecture-based apps to the cloud using Kubernetes and Amazon's Elastic Kubernetes Service. You'll learn Kubernetes deployment patterns and how to manage real-world production environments. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-kubernetes-and-eks-for-deployment/

5. Learn user management in Linux. This tutorial covers user privilege tiers and permission scope, which dictate who can access which system operations and background processes. Not only does this tutorial teach you broader concepts – it solidifies those through tons of command line interface examples. You can bookmark this handy reference for the next time you're assigning roles on a Linux server. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-user-management-in-rhel-a-comprehensive-guide/

Quote of the Week: "I was in my early thirties, and I never thought about coding in the sense that I could do it. Of course, I always found coding cool. I always thought it's cool when I see it in the movies, like, 'How can people be so smart and program this?' But not me. I mean, I'm old. I'm a woman. Never, ever. But my younger brother told me, 'You still have to work at least 30 to 40 years. You can still do everything you want.'" — Julia Undeutsch, Software Engineer, Accessibility expert, and freeCodeCamp alumna

Feb 15, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a full-length handbook that will teach you how to code in TypeScript. It's a type-safe superset of JavaScript. That means you'll be using the same JavaScript syntax and techniques you've already learned from freeCodeCamp, but with fewer errors thanks to static type checking. This book also teaches some front-end development concepts with React and Vite. Worth a read. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-typescript-with-react-handbook/

2. freeCodeCamp also published a comprehensive course to prepare you (or your kids) for the Cambridge A-Level Computer Science exam. This exam is similar to Advanced Placement exams in the US or International Baccalaureate exams in other countries. So this course should be helpful for students regardless of where they live. It covers foundational CS concepts, algorithms, data structures, and other topics you'll encounter on the exam. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-a-level-computer-science-concepts

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Peggy Wang. She's a robotics engineer who grew up in Milwaukee, used freeCodeCamp to learn to code, and ultimately got into Stanford. She's worked on augmented reality at Oculus, self-driving cars at Google Waymo, and is now building AI agents. During our conversation, she helps separate AI hype from reality, and delves deep into her hopes for humanoid robots. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-freecodecamp-to-cto-with-robotics-engineer-peggy-wang-podcast-159/

4. If you've ever wondered how GitHub's command line SSH authentication works, this quick read will walk you through the technical details. You'll learn about Symmetric and Asymmetric Encryption, Cryptographic Hash Functions, and other infosec concepts. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/ssh-authentication-with-github-under-the-hood/

5. One tool developers often use to catch errors in their code is logging. This tutorial will give you a brief intro to logging best practices in Python. You'll learn about logging levels like DEBUG and CRITICAL, and how to monitor the flow of your apps. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/what-are-logs-in-programming/

Quote of the Week: "The gap between simulation and reality is getting narrower. Grand Theft Auto is just one example. Graphics level. Fidelity. If you're able to rig up all the controls a robot would use in a 3D video game, and you train it with scenarios that the robot would encounter in real life, you should be able to generalize that to the real world." — Robotics Engineer and freeCodeCamp alum Peggy Wang on how developers now use simulated environments supercharge the AI training process. You can hear my full interview with her on this week's podcast.

Feb 8, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course on modern web development using powerful tools like Next.js, React, and Strapi. This is an intermediate course, but you can code along at home even if you're a beginner. You'll build a fully-functional summer camp website, complete with event management, pagination, form handling, and more. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-full-stack-app-with-nextjs-and-strapi

2. Learn clustering algorithms in Python. This freeCodeCamp handbook will teach you key techniques for Unsupervised Machine Learning so you can build more sophisticated AI systems. You'll learn about K-Means Clustering, Hierarchical Clustering, DBSCAN Clustering, t-SNE, and more. We've included a ton of code examples and data visualizations to make it easier for you to digest all of these engineering insights. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/clustering-in-python-a-machine-learning-handbook/

3. On this week's podcast, I interview Rishab Kumar about his journey from working at a gas station to working at Google as a software engineer. He couldn't afford to finish university in Canada, so he taught himself DevOps and how to build cloud infrastructure. We talk about how he persisted in applying to jobs at big tech companies despite rejections, and how he earned tons of cloud engineering certifications along the way. He shares actionable advice for anyone who wants to get into the field. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-gas-station-to-google-self-taught-cloud-engineer-rishab-kumar-podcast-158/

4. If you're interested in security – and you should be – then this handbook is for you. You'll build your own scalable access control system for your apps. First you'll start by exploring the open source CASL library, a popular off-the-shelf tool for authorizing user access. Then you'll set to work coding your own permissions validation framework. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-scalable-access-control-for-your-web-app/

5. Learn asynchronous programming with TypeScript. If you already know some JavaScript, you can probably pick up TypeScript pretty easily. It's just JavaScript with statically typed variables, which results in fewer bugs. We recently upgraded our open source freeCodeCamp codebase from JavaScript to TypeScript. Anyway, this handbook will teach you key Async programming concepts like Promises, Callbacks, and Async/Await. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-async-programming-in-typescript-promises-asyncawait-and-callbacks/

Quote of the Week: "If I was going to start learning programming from zero, where I had zero context, I'd learn IT fundamentals: how networking works, how the internet works, DNS, how packets transfer data, how computers communicate with each other. Because at the end of the day, all these servers in the cloud use networking to talk to each other. The second skill I'd spend my time on is learning how Linux works." — Rishab Kumar, software engineer and my guest on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast

Feb 1, 2025

1. A few days ago a Chinese hedge fund released a surprisingly powerful Large Language Model called DeepSeek. Developers trained this model for a fraction of the cost that GPT-4o and Claude required. The model is open-weight, and you can run it offline on your own hardware. I'm thrilled to say that freeCodeCamp has already published a comprehensive course to help you get up and running with DeepSeek. My friend Andrew Brown is a CTO and AI enthusiast, and he teaches this course, which will help you learn this new tool and its capabilities. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-deepseek-r1/

2. Learn Object Oriented Programming (OOP) with Python. OOP is a classic paradigm for writing maintainable code. You'll learn key concepts like Inheritance, Encapsulation, Abstraction, Polymorphism, and more – all with hands-on Python examples. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/master-object-oriented-programming-in-python/

3. This week on the freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Lane Wagner, a software engineer and prolific freeCodeCamp contributor. He runs a popular website for learning back end development. We talk about his thoughts on computer science degrees, his love of the Go programming language, and his freeCodeCamp course on developer careers that more than 3 million people have watched. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/getting-a-developer-job-lane-wagner-podcast-157/

4. Learn how to code your own book recommendation engine using Python. This course will teach you how to use a Large Language Model to process book titles and descriptions. It will then surface recommendations for books you might like in a dashboard. You'll learn about Data Cleaning, Vector Databases, Langchain, Zero-shot Classification, Sentiment Analysis, and more. And if your resulting project works well, you may never again need to wonder which book you should read next. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-semantic-book-recommender-using-an-llm-and-python/

5. Learn how to write Clean Code. This is a popular approach to building maintainable software. And this handbook will teach you all about code readability, clean project structures, best practices for comments, testing, and more. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-clean-code-handbook/

Quote of the Week: "AI can't save you if your code is a mess. It's like building a house on sand. Sure, it stands for a while. But one strong gust of wind or one big wave and it collapses. Remember: AI is just a tool. If you don't know how to write clean, scalable applications, you're setting yourself up for failure." — Shahan Chowdhury, developer and freeCodeCamp contributor

Jan 25, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive guide to the famous "NeetCode 150" – the 150 most important LeetCode algorithm problems. If you're gearing up for technical job interviews, this should be a good use of your time. You'll learn Graphs, Trees, Linked Lists, Dynamic Programming, and more. (38 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/prepare-for-technical-interviews-using-neetcode-150

2. Learn about Webhooks by coding your own Discord bot. This freeCodeCamp tutorial will walk you through setting up a Next.js codebase, configuring your environment variables, and creating a Discord Server Action. You can then use this project as the boilerplate for building future bots to do tasks for you and your friends. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/integrate-discord-webhooks-with-nextjs-15-example-project/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Google Brain Machine Learning Engineer Jiquan Ngiam. We talk about the limits of AI, and separate hype from current capabilities. We discuss how AI agents work, how non-developers can leverage AI, and how skilled developers can REALLY leverage AI to get things done. Plus I perform a song from the 1988 Nintendo Double Dragon II soundtrack. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/ai-reality-vs-speculation-jiquan-ngiam-podcast-156/

4. If you're interested in information security, you may enjoy this crash course on Metasploit, a powerful Penetration Testing tool. You'll learn about Exploits, Payloads, Auxiliary Modules, and more. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-metasploit-for-beginners/

5. And if you want a more hands-on infosec project, try building your own Real-Time Intrusion Detection System using Python. You'll learn about Packet Capturing Engines, Network Traffic Analysis, and Alert Systems. Then you'll wire these all together using Python's scapy, numpy, nmap, and scikit-learn libraries. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-real-time-intrusion-detection-system-with-python/

Quote of the Week: "I used to think that being able to think, code, and communicate simultaneously was an impossible feat, until I realized that most people are just not good at coding interviews when they first start out. Interviewing is a skill that you can get better at by studying, preparing, and practicing for it." — Yangshun Tay, FAANG Software Engineer and freeCodeCamp contributor

Jan 18, 2025

1. Learn how to read academic papers so that you can stay on top of the latest breakthroughs in computer science and software engineering. Yacine is an engineer and researcher, and in this freeCodeCamp course he'll walk you through how he approaches reading papers. You'll learn how to quickly gain context, fill your conceptual gaps, and analyze datasets & codebases. You'll also learn a bit about common mathematical notation, and how to avoid being daunted by academic terminology. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/understanding-deep-learning-research-tutorial-theory-code-and-math/

2. Learn about the emerging field of AI Engineering, which is essentially adding AI to existing websites and apps. 90% of AI Engineering is just good old-fashioned web development with a few new tools and APIs sprinkled in. This handbook will give you an overview of the field, with case studies and helpful career tips for getting started. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-ai-engineering-handbook-how-to-start-a-career-and-excel-as-an-ai-engineer/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview software engineer Elliot Arledge about building new AI systems from scratch. Elliot has taught several popular freeCodeCamp courses, including one on GPU programming with CUDA. He shares his own approach to reading academic papers – an important skill – and tips for assimilating new concepts quickly. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/cuda-gpu-programming-elliot-arledge-podcast-155/

4. Learn how AI is now being applied to agriculture to increase crop yields. freeCodeCamp just published this book that will give you insight into optimized crop cultivation techniques. You'll learn about Precision Agriculture, pest & disease management, soil moisture monitoring, sustainable land use strategies, harvest automation, and more. (full-length book): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/ai-in-agriculture-book/

5. GitHub Actions are a powerful tool for automating aspects of your developer workflow. They can save you and your collaborators a lot of time by listening for certain events, then automatically taking pre-determined actions. freeCodeCamp just published a tutorial that will show you how to get up and running with GitHub Actions on your own Git repositories. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-to-use-github-actions-step-by-step-guide/

Quote of the Week: "All the wonders of our universe can in effect be captured by simple rules. Yet there can be no way to know all the consequences of these rules, except just to watch and see how they unfold." – Stephen Wolfram, mathematician and computer scientist

Jan 11, 2025

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course that will teach you fundamental Machine Learning concepts, then show you how to deploy your own Generative AI systems to the cloud. You'll learn about model training, optimization, autonomous agents, and more advanced techniques like Retrieval-Augmented Generation. This course is taught by my friend Andrew Brown – a CTO who has spent years architecting elaborate systems. (23 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-generative-ai-in-23-hours/

2. Learn how to code your own home automation system. This project-oriented “Internet of Things” course will teach you how to write software to monitor the temperature, air quality, and air pressure in your home. You can use inexpensive off-the-shelf hardware like Raspberry Pi and ESP32 microcontrollers. You'll learn about server design, database management, communication protocols, and control interfaces. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-iot-home-automation-by-building-a-project/

3. Many people rely on spreadsheets to do their jobs, but few people actually invest the time to master these powerful tools. This new freeCodeCamp course will teach you tons of useful spreadsheet techniques. You'll build 33 different spreadsheet projects – getting exposure to Visual Basic scripting, advanced formulas, and tons of time-saving keyboard shortcuts. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/master-spreadsheets-by-building-33-projects/

4. This Web Development tutorial will show you how to ramp up the performance of your Next.js and React apps. You'll learn about caching, font optimization, code splitting, lazy loading, and more. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/optimize-nextjs-web-apps-for-better-performance/

5. And this Machine Learning tutorial will teach you how to handle non-linear data using a technique called Support Vector Machine Kernel Functions. This is vital for classification tasks like medical image analysis, speech recognition, or time-series forecasting. Enjoy. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/svm-kernels-how-to-tackle-nonlinear-data-in-machine-learning/

Quote of the Week: "It is not knowledge, but the act of learning – not possession, but the act of getting there – which generates the greatest satisfaction." — Carl Friedrich Gauss, 18th century Mathematician and Astronomer

Jan 4, 2025

1. The freeCodeCamp community just shipped major updates to our core software engineering curriculum for 2025. We've added hundreds of short lectures on computer science concepts, along with dozens of new programming projects. By the way, don't worry if you were studying the old curriculum – all the old coursework is still live. But I encourage you to dive into the new coursework, as it is much more robust. My article goes into more detail on the improvements. (massive interactive coding curriculum): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/christmas-2025-freecodecamp-curriculum-updates/

2. If you're interested in learning mobile app development, you don't necessarily need to spend years learning Java, Android, Swift, and Objective C. You can instead build cross-platform apps using the JavaScript skills you already have, with help from an open source framework called React Native. This course will teach you the basics, including CRUD operations, Multi-Screen Navigation, Dynamic Routing, and more. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/mobile-app-development-with-react-native/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview The King of CSS himself, Kevin Powell. Over the years, Kevin's shared over 800 CSS tutorials. We talk about why you should still learn CSS in 2025, how not to fear it, and some of the big improvements coming to CSS. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-not-hate-css-kevin-powell-interview-154/

4. freeCodeCamp just published a full-length handbook on Object Oriented Programming with C#. This book dives into the many C# class design patterns, including Sealed Classes, Singleton Classes, Concrete Classes, and more. This is just one of many C#-related learning resources we'll publish in 2025. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/classes-in-c-sharp-handbook-with-examples/

5. You can make learning to code a bit easier by focusing on the fundamentals. freeCodeCamp's curriculum is just one path, but we have tons of extra-curricular resources, too. This article will give you some tips for learning algorithms, data structures, programming languages, and other software engineering tools. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-make-learning-to-code-easier-by-focusing-on-the-fundamentals

Quote of the Week: "If you are feeling impostor syndrome, you are probably on a path to achieving new things. Impostor syndrome never attacks the content. It attacks the achievers." — Danny Thompson, freeCodeCamp alum, software engineer, and host of The Programming Podcast. (They interview me on Episode 7 that came out last week.)

Dec 21, 2024

1. freeCodeCamp just published a new course that will help you prepare for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional exam, and pass it with confidence. Andrew Brown is a CTO who has passed dozens of similar cloud cert exams. He'll teach you all about Virtual Private Clouds, cloud databases, serverless functions, and tons of AWS-specific security and storage tools. (70 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/aws-solutions-architect-professional-sap-c02-certification-course

2. Each week somebody writes asking for me to share some more Java-focused courses. Well, I'm thrilled to say that freeCodeCamp just published a course on the Spring Boot web development framework that will walk you through integrating AI capabilities into your Java apps. You can code along at home and build several projects that incorporate AI APIs like an audio transcription tool, a recipe generator, and a question & answer chatbot. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-smarter-spring-boot-applications-with-spring-ai

3. On this week's podcast, I interview software engineer James Q. Quick about how he approached his job search after a recent layoff. James grew up in Memphis and was an athlete who also played violin. He knew nothing about computer science, but chose it as his college major. Since then, he's not only worked as a dev at Microsoft, FedEx, and many tech startups. He's also given more than 100 talks at developer conferences. He talks about how his Harry Potter Trivia app helped launch his career. And he shares tons of advice for how to make a name for yourself through writing tutorials and giving conference talks. (90 minute watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-get-a-developer-job-even-in-this-economy-james-q-quick-podcast-153/

4. Learn game development fundamentals and code your own 2D platformer game. This course will teach you how to code your own JavaScript game that runs right in a browser, which will make your game extremely easy to share with your friends. You'll learn how to use the Kaplay JS library to load sprite art assets, handle collisions, react to controller inputs from players, and more. You'll even learn how to deploy your game to a publishing platform like itch. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-game-development-with-javascript-and-kaplay

5. You may have heard the term “User Stories.” These are a key concept in Agile software development. User Stories are essentially feature specifications, but they're written from the perspective of what your end users are actually trying to accomplish. This comprehensive tutorial will teach you how to create good user stories that can guide you and your team as you build features for your apps. This tutorial will also show you quite a few examples of well-designed user stories, and share some tips for how to structure them. You'll also learn about some common pitfalls developers encounter when crafting user stories, so that you can avoid them. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-write-user-stories-for-beginners/

Dec 14, 2024

1. freeCodeCamp just published a course by computer science professor Dr. Radu. It will teach you how to use math to simplify your code. You can code along at home and build a musical polyrhythm app that procedurally generates sounds and visualizes them using JavaScript. You’ll learn how to structure your code for readability and maintainability – all while seeing how math underpins these concepts. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-how-math-can-make-your-code-better-by-coding-polyrhythms/

2. Elasticsearch is a powerful open source tool that tons of apps use for their search bars. freeCodeCamp just published a course that will show you how you can deploy your own real-world search engine that you can incorporate into your apps. You'll learn about Index Management, Tokenization, Embedding, Ingest Processors, Data Pipelines, Aggregations, and more. (5 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-elasticsearch-with-a-comprehensive-beginner-friendly-course/

3. On this week's episode of the freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Scott Tolinski. He's the host of the world's most popular web developer podcast, Syntax FM. We talk about how 12 years ago he sustained a serious head injury while breakdancing that sidelined him for 9 months. But he made good use of this downtime and slowly built a programming tutorial empire. He shares insights from his career of working for tiny agencies, giant companies, and everything in between. He also shares some productivity tips that have helped keep him from burning out over the decades. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/scott-tolinski-syntax-podcast-interview/

4. freeCodeCamp also published this CI/CD Handbook. CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. It's an important process in software development, and this handbook will teach you how it works. You'll learn about Docker, GitHub Actions, Branch Management, and a ton of cloud deployment concepts. (90 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-continuous-integration-delivery-and-deployment/

5. R is a popular statistical programming language, and it has its own web development framework called Shiny. This tutorial will show you how to build your own weather data dashboard app using R Shiny. You'll start by setting up the project. Then you'll get keys for your data API, and wire them into your dashboard. Along the way, you'll learn about Geocoding, Error Handling, Reactivity, and more. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-a-weather-app-with-r-shiny/

Quote of the Week: "People who discover the power and beauty of high-level, abstract ideas often make the mistake of believing that concrete ideas at lower levels are worthless and might as well be forgotten. On the contrary, the best computer scientists are thoroughly grounded in basic concepts of how computers actually work. The essence of computer science is an ability to understand many levels of abstraction simultaneously." — Donald Knuth, programmer and mathematician

Dec 7, 2024

1. freeCodeCamp just published a course that will teach you the fundamentals of React, the most popular front end development JavaScript library. This course will teach you key concepts as you code along at home, building several projects including a meme generator and an AI-powered chef's recipe app. This course teaches emerging best practices, and the newest version of React, React 19. (16 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-react-2024

2. freeCodeCamp also just published a full-length book on how to design your own Microservices and deploy them to the cloud. Microservice Architecture is a software development approach where you build stand-alone apps that only do one specific thing. Then these Microservices call upon one another to get more complicated things done. This differs from the traditional Monolith approach, where everything's part of the same codebase. This intermediate book will teach you about Synchronous versus Async Communication, RESTful APIs, Protocol Buffers, Container Orchestration, CI/CD Pipelines, and more. It also features case studies from companies that have adopted Microservices, such as Amazon and Netflix. (full-length book): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-microservices-book-build-and-manage-services-in-the-cloud/

3. One of my favorite podcast interviews I've done was with John Washam, a software engineer at Amazon. John's also the creator of one of the most popular open source projects of all time: Coding Interview University. This is John's first-ever appearance on a podcast, so we go really in-depth. We talk about his years working as an interpreter in the US military. Then we dive into how he taught himself software engineering, and what he's learned from climbing the ranks at a big tech company. If you're learning to code later in life, this should be particularly helpful for you. (3 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-john-washam-crammed-for-8-months-got-a-job-at-amazon-then-taught-1000s-of-other-devs-134/

4. Don't be content merely using spreadsheets – excel with them. Pun intended. Last week I shared my podcast interview with Eamonn Cottrell, who runs a coffee shop chain and learned to code so he could automate back office tasks. Well, Eamonn's back with a new course that will teach you how to fully leverage the power of Google Sheets. You'll learn about data validation, slicers, visualizations, and even building custom functions using App Scripts. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-google-sheets-course-for-beginners/

5. Tell your Spanish-speaking friends: freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course on how to build robots using Arduino microcontrollers. It covers electrical engineering concepts like resistance, pin declarations, and analog input/output. You'll learn how to add your own sensors, control motors, LED displays, and more. Note that we have English-language Arduino courses, too. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-arduino-in-spanish-course-for-beginners/

Quote of the Week: "The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry." — Henry Petroski, Engineer, Author, and Duke University professor, lamenting the sloppy coding practices he'd seen in industry

Nov 29, 2024

1. If you already know a little JavaScript and want to learn Python, too, this handbook is for you. It will turbo-charge your learning by teaching you the similarities between these two high level scripting languages. You'll learn how each language approaches Syntax, Data Structures, Modules, Error Handling, and more. You'll even get some side-by-side script comparisons so that you can appreciate the nuanced differences in how these languages get things done. My humble advice is to learn both of these languages, and to learn them well. They will only become more and more central to software development over the next 20 years. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-python-for-javascript-developers-handbook/

2. Learn how to run Large Language Models on your own computer – no cloud servers required. This course will teach you how to use Ollama to run the Llama LLM. You'll be able to access its APIs and Python libraries so you can build AI-powered apps locally. Along the way, you'll apply these new skills to build your own grocery list organizer, Retrieval Augmented Generation system, and recruitment agency app. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/local-ai-development-with-ollama-course/

3. On this week's episode of the freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Eamonn Cottrell. He's a software engineer who taught himself how to code while running a local chain of coffee shops in Knoxville. He has largely automated a lot of the back office tasks for his shops, and is helping other people do the same. He's already published 37 freeCodeCamp tutorials on productivity and automation using spreadsheets. We talk about his love of coffee and latte art, ultra-marathoning, and how he balances being a musician with the practical realities of providing for a family of 6. Super inspiring. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/self-taught-coding-automating-coffee-shop-chain-eamonn-cottrell-interview-151/

4. Learn HTML Canvas by coding your own meme generator website. You can code along at home with this tutorial and build a simple website that creates memes where you can customize the text that appears on top of an image. This is a beginner-level project that will only take a few hours. It will give you hands-on practice with some powerful web development tools. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/create-meme-generator-using-html-canvas/

5. When you run a popular app, you probably don't want to deploy new features to all of your users at the same time. You instead want to test those features out with a small subset of your users. That's where Feature Flags come in handy. This tutorial will teach you how to add Feature Flags to a Golang app, so that you can more safely roll out new code. (25 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-flexible-api-with-feature-flags-using-open-source-tools/

Quote of the Week: "Language choice is not as important as all the other choices: if you have the right overall architecture, the right team of programmers, the right development process that allows for rapid development with continuous improvement, then many languages will work for you. If you don't have those things you're in trouble regardless of your language choice." — Peter Norvig, Software Engineer and AI researcher at Stanford

Nov 22, 2024

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course on Flutter – a popular framework for building Android and iOS apps at the same time. We think Flutter is awesome, and use it to build and maintain freeCodeCamp's own mobile apps. This beginner-level course will teach you Flutter by walking you through step-by-step as you code your own clone of the Spotify app. (10 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/create-a-full-stack-spotify-clone-with-flutter/

2. Reverse Engineering is when you want to build your own version of an app, but don't know how it was implemented – you only have the finished product to serve as your guide. This tutorial will give you a methodology for reverse engineering websites so you can get practice implementing features you see in the wild. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-reverse-engineer-a-website/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I talk with Tim Ruscica, software engineer and host of the popular Tech with Tim YouTube channel. We talk about how Tim learned computer architecture as a kid by playing Minecraft, then managed to land a Microsoft internship when he was just 19. He also shares his insights on learning to code, and why he recommends Python as a first programming language: “It's the least overwhelming thing to get your hands dirty.” (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/tech-with-tim-freecodecamp-podcast-150/

4. Learn how to manage the state of your React apps using Redux and Redux Toolkit. This freeCodeCamp JavaScript course will teach you powerful design patterns you can use to shape the experience of your users. You'll learn about middleware, hooks, async actions, immutable state updates, and more. (8 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-redux-and-redux-toolkit-for-state-management/

5. Whether you're a developer or a semi-technical decision maker on a team, you'll benefit from understanding modern development frameworks and what they bring to the table. This comprehensive guide will break down the many framework categories for you, so that you can choose the right tools for the job. You'll learn about AI frameworks, UI frameworks, testing tools, infrastructure tools, and more. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/understanding-modern-development-frameworks-guide-for-devs/

Quote of the Week: "If you're 5-10 years old and your main circle isn't frequently discussing: PWA vs Native app, TypeScript vs JavaScript, Flutter vs React Native – and are instead discussing: Playdough, LEGOs, Goldfish... then it's time to elevate your circle." — Ben Awad, software engineer and freeCodeCamp contributor. And yes, he means this as a joke.

Nov 15, 2024

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive full-stack development course that will help you learn modern JavaScript tools by building your own dating app. This course will walk you step-by-step through setting up Next.js, Prisma, and NextAuth. You'll even deploy your app to the web using Vercel. Along the way, you'll add interactive features with Pusher for real-time web socket messaging, and Cloudinary for media uploads. This is an ideal course if you want to expand and solidify your web dev skills. (7 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-deploy-a-full-stack-dating-app/

2. Learn how to harness the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) through this Generative AI course freeCodeCamp just published. You'll learn key concepts like data preprocessing, fine-tuning, and Retrieval Augmented Generation. You'll also learn how to use popular tools like Hugging Face and LangChain. By the end of this project-oriented course, you'll have built your own AI pipeline and vector database, and deployed your app to the cloud. (22 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-generative-ai-for-developers/

3. On this week's podcast I interview Google Machine Learning Engineer turned Stanford Researcher Yifan Mai about the state of AI. He runs the open source HELM project, which benchmarks the capabilities of LLMs like GPT-4 and Llama against one another. We talk about the ragged frontier of LLM use cases, Open Weight models and how they're different from open source software, and his predictions for how AI will impact the job market. I had a blast and learned so much from this conversation. And I think you will, too. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/open-weights-vs-open-source-with-google-engineer-and-stanford-researcher-yifan-mai-podcast-149/

4. Most developers I know use Git constantly. I certainly do. And one tool that helps keep me sane is Git aliases. These are custom shortcuts that dramatically reduce the amount of typing you have to do in your command line. This tutorial will teach you how to create your own custom Git aliases – with custom parameter syntax – and make them globally accessible throughout your developer environment. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-simplify-your-git-commands-with-git-aliases/

5. The Go programming language is growing in popularity among devs who want to write high-performance code. If you want to get into Golang, this tutorial will teach you the foundational concepts. You'll learn about Go's data types, control structures, pointers, error handling, concurrency, standard library, and more. (20 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/key-golang-concepts-for-beginner-go-devs/

Quote of the Week: "Brainpower is by far our scarcest resource." — Edsger Dijkstra, programmer and computer scientist

Nov 8, 2024

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course on AI fundamentals. You'll learn a ton of Machine Learning concepts like regularization, overfitting, and bias-variance trade-off. You'll also learn how to use Python to implement Linear Regression, Neural Networks, and other key algorithms. Then you'll cement your understanding through case studies on recommendation engines and predictive analytics systems. (11 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-the-foundations-of-machine-learning-and-artificial-intelligence/

2. And if you want even more practice implementing AI systems, freeCodeCamp instructor Ania Kubów just published a new course on using Retrieval Augmented Generation to build a chatbot. You'll learn how to take an off-the-shelf foundation model like GPT-4, then embed your own custom datasets. Ania will even guide you through deploying your bot to the cloud, so you can show it off to your friends. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-your-own-rag-chatbot-with-javascript/

3. On this week's podcast, I talk with Jerod and Adam – hosts of the longest-running software podcast on Earth: the Changelog. We talk about how open source is changing, and they share some pretty wild stories. We also discuss how more companies are self-hosting their own infrastructure. And we talk about Open Data and Open AI Models. I hope you enjoy these conversations and their many insights as much as I do. (90 minute watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/open-source-the-changelog-podcast-148/

4. As my friends at The Changelog often say: “Software is eating the world. And open source is eating software.” This new freeCodeCamp course will show you how to navigate Open Source like a pro. You'll learn key open source concepts and terminology. Then you'll learn how to identify good projects to contribute to, and how to navigate their codebases. Finally, you'll learn how to submit good pull requests that maximize the chances of your code getting merged in. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/become-an-open-source-master/

5. Learn how to write Clean Code – a widely-respected approach to building maintainable software. This tutorial will teach you the key Clean Code principles, such as the Single Responsibility Principle, Dependency Minimization, testing best practices, and more. (30 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-write-clean-code-tips-for-developers/

Quote of the Week: "Every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it." – John McCarthy, all the way back in 1956. He was a computer scientist who created the Lisp programming language.

Nov 1, 2024

1. This week, the freeCodeCamp community turns 10 years old. Back in 2014, I sat down and wrote the first lines of the freeCodeCamp open source codebase. Since then, we've built an interactive 3,000-hour core curriculum that teaches math, programming, and computer science. We've also built a library of more than 12,000 programming tutorials and more than 1,000 full-length YouTube courses. And most importantly, we've brought together a supportive community of developers who are eager to help people expand their skills. In this brief article and update video, you'll learn about the path ahead, along with some major improvements we're making to freeCodeCamp's core curriculum. (10 minute read plus a 5 minute video): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/freecodecamp-turns-10-major-curriculum-updates/

2. Andrew Brown is a CTO who has passed dozens of cloud cert exams. We just published his new course on how to pass the Google Cloud Digital Leader certification exam. Unlike the more technical certifications that freeCodeCamp also has prep courses for, this credential focuses on the business aspects of cloud computing and foundational cloud concepts. It may be a good fit for you as a professional. And if so, this course is an excellent place to start. (7 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/prepare-for-and-pass-the-google-cloud-digital-leader-certification-exam/

3. This week's freeCodeCamp podcast is one of the best interviews I've ever done. Dorian had a rough upbringing in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. As a kid, he dropped out of high school and got arrested 4 times for crimes like stealing cars. His mother had to get him out of there, and his parole officer agreed to let him move to Las Vegas. There he found stable jobs parking cars at casinos. He taught himself how to code using freeCodeCamp, and eventually got software engineering jobs at Fortune 500 companies. I hope you enjoy this whirlwind of an interview. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-stealing-cars-to-self-taught-software-engineer-dorian-develops-podcast-147/

4. freeCodeCamp just published an in-depth tutorial on how to debug JavaScript right in your browser. You'll learn how to use Chrome DevTools to inspect elements, add breakpoints, and traverse the callstack. If you're new to web development, this should be a helpful resource. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-developer-tools-to-debug-javascript-in-the-browser/

5. One of the most powerful tools cybersecurity researchers use is – surprisingly – Google search. They use a technique called “Google dorking” to find Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). This quick tutorial will teach you some search operators you can use for extremely deep searching, so you can find secrets that are right out in the open waiting to be discovered. (8 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/google-dorking-how-to-find-hidden-information-on-the-web/

Quote of the Week: "We can only see a short distance ahead. But we can see plenty there that needs to be done." — Alan Turing

Oct 25, 2024

1. freeCodeCamp just published a new course that will teach you how to code your own Sonic the Hedgehog infinite runner game in JavaScript. You'll learn how to implement core gameplay mechanics like enemy logic, parallax scrolling, scoring systems, and more. We also include all the sprite art assets you'll need to build a working game. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/code-a-sonic-infinite-runner-game-in-javascript/

2. Learn AI Engineering where you wrap a foundation model in your own custom code. In this course, we'll use the Claude LLM API to code two projects: a text summarizer app and an image describer app. You'll learn how to incorporate the API into your app, handle errors, engineer prompts, and deploy to the cloud so your friends can try it. (1 hour course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-to-use-claude-ai/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Tadas Petra, a prolific mobile app developer and teacher. When Tadas was just a child, his family immigrated to Chicago from Lithuania. His parents did whatever work they could find while Tadas struggled to learn English in school. He eventually got into university but nearly failed his first programming class. He persisted, and eventually got an internship at a trucking company writing code to control trucks. We talk about his coding journey and his many tips for learning mobile app development. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/tadas-petra-podcast-146/

4. If you want to write solid software, why not learn SOLID Principles? These are S: Single Responsibility Principle. O: Open-closed Principle. L: Liskov Substitution Principle. I: Interface Segregation Principle. And D: Dependency Inversion Principle. Don't be daunted – this tutorial will break all this down with nice code examples to help you grok this popular programming approach. (20 minute read): https://freecodecamp.org/news/what-are-the-solid-principles-in-csharp

5. Up your CSS game by learning how to create elegant curved-edge shapes and rounded-edge shapes. This tutorial will teach you how to use the clip-path and mask properties to create radial gradients. You'll also see some of the cool geometry involved. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/rounded-and-curved-edge-css-shapes/

Quote of the Week: "I really enjoyed porting games to new systems because I learned a lot that way. For a programmer, it was really challenging to port a game from a high-quality arcade machine to a lower-quality home console. The skills I developed working on ports are what enabled me to create new games." — Yuji Naka, programmer and creator of Sonic the Hedgehog

Oct 18, 2024

1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive course on how to build mobile apps using React Native. In the past, if you wanted to build mobile apps, you needed to learn iOS and Android-specific tools. But over the past decade, the JavaScript tool ecosystem for building mobile apps has improved dramatically. This course will teach you how to code your own ecommerce mobile app using React Native, Expo, Supabase, and the Stripe payment API. You'll also learn how to build an admin panel using Next.js, which you can use to browse inventory, customers, and transactions. (12 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/mobile-app-development-course-with-react-native-supabase-nextjs/

2. My friend Eamonn is a coffee shop owner turned software engineer, and a prolific contributor to freeCodeCamp's open learning resources. He's written this excellent guide to Excel keyboard shortcuts. Learn how to center cell contents, hide gridlines, auto-fit column sizes and more – all with just a few keystrokes. No mouse necessary. I'm somewhat of a shortcut connoisseur myself, so I found these super useful. I think they'll save you a lot of time, too. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/microsoft-excel-keyboard-shortcuts/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Roadmap SH founder Kamran Ahmed about his journey into open source software development. We talk about his early career as a dev in Pakistan, and how he worked abroad in Berlin, Dubai, and now London. He shares his passion for open source and practical tips for how to get involved. This is a perfect conversation to listen to during Hacktoberfest – the month-long celebration of open source – where you can get involved and make your first code contributions. (2 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/roadmapsh-founder-kamran-ahmed-podcast-145/

4. Learn how to build a full-stack MERN stack app. MERN stands for MongoDB, Express, React, and Node. Developers have used this time-tested stack for over a decade now. And now you can, too. This beginner's course will walk you through building a bookstore app. You'll start by coding a Dynamic, Responsive front end using React. You'll learn how to create Reusable Components for your navigation bar and shopping cart system. Then you'll dive into back end development. You'll build an API that can process book orders and store them in your database. You'll also learn about Authentication, State Management, and Deployment. (9 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-full-stack-book-store-app-using-react-node-mongodb/

5. Learn how to leverage the powerful Binary Exponentiation Algorithm to calculate large powers of numbers. Developers use this all the time when working on cryptography and computer graphics. The reason Binary Exponentiation is so powerful is that it reduces the amount of multiplications you need to do, and each iteration through the loop re-uses previous calculations. This tutorial will show you how to implement this algorithm step-by-step with a simple Python script, and understand what's happening under the hood. (10 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/binary-exponentiation-algorithm-explained-with-examples/

Quote of the Week: "The power of Open Source is the power of the people. The people rule." — Philippe Kahn, software engineer and founder of 4 tech companies

Oct 11, 2024

1. freeCodeCamp just published this course that will teach you how databases work from the ground up. You'll learn about Schemas and Indexing. You'll also learn how databases leverage both RAM and disk storage, how they interact with networks, and how they distribute data. Then you'll explore SQLite's architecture and contrast it with MySQL and PostgreSQL. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-databases-in-depth/

2. Learn how to pass AWS's new Certified AI Practitioner certification. Andrew Brown is a CTO who has passed dozens of similar cloud cert exams. He'll teach you all about the cert and the many cloud services it covers: Bedrock, PartyRock, SageMaker, Athena, and more. (15 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/prepare-to-pass-the-aws-certified-ai-practitioner-certification/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I talk with Dennis Ivy about how to become a street-smart developer. Dennis grew up in an immigrant fam