The holidays are officially over, which means we're all feeling slightly deflated now that the bleakest months of the year, January and February, lie before us. We're in an overwrought state of forcing our butts back to work and making new years resolutions, most of them to aimed at getting better at something. Instead of focusing on purely physical goals this year, why not do yourself a favour and learn how to code in 2012?
Web Development for many of us is a scary thing, a series of perplexing foreign languages filled with complicated strings of numbers and letters. Non-sensical as it all may seem, learning basic code is as easy as pie; with a bit of dedication and discipline. It's one of the most rewarding things you can do for yourself, especially in the twenty-first century. We all use computers, mobiles and the web everyday, so learning how it all works behind the scenes will without a doubt come of use to you at some point, whether it's simply tweaking some basic HTML on a personal site, your company's website, or even deciding that you'd like to become a web or app developer yourself!
The awesome folks over at codeacademy.com have launched a new project for all you eager newbies at codeyear.com, a website dedicated to helping you learn to code this year, one week at a time. If you sign up, you'll be sent an interactive lesson from them each week!
If something like that is too structured for you, there are a million other resources out there to learn from at your own pace. Some great websites for getting your feet wet are Smashing Magazine, Six Revisions and A List Apart. A List Apart have also published some must-have books found at abookapart.com or on Amazon. My final recommendation is the fabulous "Designing With Web Standards", a book by veteran web designer Jeffrey Zeldman, also available on Amazon.
Even if you hated maths in school, learning web development and design isn't as hard as you'd think. It allows you to be independent and creative online, which is a powerful ability to have. Challenge yourself to learn how to properly code this year, I promise you won't regret it!
Image via wetwebwork's flickr