Does anyone have *any* of those. online "learn programming" type things they like and would actually recommend?

I've not been a professional software developer for well over a decade, and the last code I wrote other than my own personal stuff was mostly just fixing up other people's HTML/CSS/JS, not starting from scratch.

Hoping for something that doesn't shove AI slop at me, and ideally something for either Ruby or PHP.

I've tried boot.dev -- it's fun, but Python and AI slop in places now.

@mattl There should be a free PHP course at laracasts.com all taught by humans. Does that fit?

@ross That fits. I think I may have already done one (my previous job had lots of Laravel developers, although I'm not using Laravel for my new project) but I will check it out again. Thank you.

@mattl

https://exercism.org seems pretty good.

I will be taking their free golang course.

@rl_dane Thank you. I will have a look.... although their registration process has me pick a username, give up my email address and then tells me the username is taken and the forgot password screen explicitly tells me the email address isn't in use... which isn't great.

@mattl if you like python, try the python manual itself
it is pretty well written
if you want something simpler you could try Godot
its scripts are similar to php, if the syntax is not the same (no $ on variables, no . vs -> etc)
or maybe just javascript, it's a very complete language since ES6

@mattl I like https://exercism.org/. Its partially open source (the exercises and scoring engine at least, not sure about the rest) and encourages you to actually do the exersises in your own device / environment, providing tests etc that run locally

@efi Isn't Godot a game engine?

The thing I've tried (boot dot dev) is for Python, I have no idea what the state of Python web frameworks is like these days but I did Zope for a good number of years and then much later some Django.

@mattl

Founders And Coders may have some suggestions:

https://www.foundersandcoders.com/

@mattl

Ooof. Yeah, definitely a job for a "junk drawer" email account. 🥴

@rl_dane @4censord Somehow signing in with my GitHub profile worked, so maybe I tried this a while ago.

Anyway, I will give this a go. Thank you both.

@mattl oh, if you're looking specifically for web development, javascript for the frontend (and some use it in the backend), and python in the backend is a good combo
I don't know much about Django, but if you just want some data crunching, python is plenty without a framework
it really depends on your project needs

@BillySmith Looks like that's in person (and in London) and AI slop in there too, sadly.

@efi So I already have a project in PHP with 400,000-ish users, but I've done a bit of Ruby lately and enjoy it.

What does writing Python for web stuff look like without a framework? Is that just mod_python?

@mattl

Sorry about the AI slop.

I'll have a word with them about that... :|

Yes, it's in-person, and, it's based in London, but they had some great remote options during the UK lockdowns, and those should still be running.

It's why they had a lot more international students taking part.

@mattl now that you mention it, I have no clue?? like I've used it, but it was on a vps, so it was already set up for me, so all I had to do is redirect an address to a python script, and whatever the stdout of the script was, that was served as a website
saying that now I relaize how much I took for granted back then lol

@BillySmith Hm, I didn't see in-person stuff but I'll be honest I saw "AI" and closed the tab.

@mattl

Just saw that they are now getting UK government funding to teach Machine Learning systems... :|

And the remote options are no longer listed... :|

I'll have to stop recommending them. :(

@BillySmith I appreciate the response anyway.

Some day I will make it back to the UK.

@mattl

If i find any other sources, i'll let you know. :D

@mattl

Start a project! The only way to learn to write software that serves a real purpose is to work on a project that serves a real purpose that you actually care about!

@ryan Yeah, I just closed Libre.fm to new registrations after 16 years and 375,000 users. Trying to think about what to do next.

@mattl re: not being a pro software developer, this is interesting to me because I have this belief that anyone who has a hobby project on GitHub, etc. is an architect-level developer who could walk into most dev shops and name their salary.

@mattl This is - the mother load - of online courses, all free. There's certainly Ruby in here somewhere.

https://github.com/ossu/computer-science

@stinerman I wish. I’m certainly not the best developer but I know a lot of stuff that they’re likely not teaching anyone anymore.

@mattl I think rubymonk.com is still cool if a bit dated.

@ericg Nice. I just let them know their TLS cert expired.

@mattl @robb Udemy is really good and many libraries and institutions offer access. It’s how I learned Cypress and the instructor was fantastic.

@Aaron @robb Sadly *everything* on the homepage is AI.

@mattl @robb Really? Ugh. That sucks. I never went to the homepage because once I found a course, I just bookmarked that and dove straight in. AI is so frakking awful.

There are a bunch of interesting books building learn-to-code around another interest — cryptography or robotics or game dev or?

Some of them probably have online parts to save you typing-in. @mattl

@clew Web dev for me

If we’re going to have a chance at a life without Gen AI we need to start finding the best resources online and pointing people at them.

Makes me very happy we have Wikipedia but do we need anything else?

Maybe something from No Starch Press would suit?

https://nostarch.com/catalog/programming

@mattl

@mattl if you're still lacking options, tell me what you want to learn about and if I know anything on it I can probably point you in the right direction

@mattl web rings and RSS directories.

@mattl @rl_dane @4censord exercism is free software, content is freely licensed & it's community funded. Definitely an exemplar of what we want to see imo. If you like it & you're able, kick them a few bucks.

@mattl I quite liked my time with an earlier edition of Think Python https://greenteapress.com/wp/think-python-3rd-edition/

And I got jobs writing it

AI-free due to seniority.

@clayote Sounds interesting. Thank you!

@clayote "Thanks to the Free Software Foundation for developing the GNU Free Documentation
License, which helped make my collaboration with Jeff and Chris possible, and Creative
Commons for the license I am using now." is quite the quote for the introduction.

@ryanprior @rl_dane @4censord Yeah, I think I really like it. Just donated a little, but will keep an eye on it and hopefully I can use it for most of what I want.

@mattl if you are interested in python + django (web framework), https://tutorial.djangogirls.org/ go into a lot of details and being 10+ years should be all human made. I had issues grasping how to work with django forms from their documentation and the django girls chapter on the subject helped me a lot.

I am really enjoying exercism.org — there is optional AI slop but only if you donate…?

@mattl Everybody should start editing their area of expertise at @Curlie

@clayote @Curlie oh cool! I had no idea Dmoz lived on.