Getting started with coding: EdX CS50

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For the big unknown, which is the coding element, I figured a good place to start would be edX’s CS50 course. A couple of friends who earn a living writing code and were kind enough not to laugh (at least, not to my face) when I asked recommended it as a solid introduction for the total layman.

The course is divided into a series of weeks. Each week contains a lecture and some supporting materials, and then has one or more exercises to write some code to achieve a specific output. I am cheating a little – I had a quick peek at the first couple of weeks’ content last year – but haven’t really tackled the course properly before now.

Based on the quick look it seems it will be possible to blaze through the early weeks but that it will get a bit tougher from week 3 or 4 onwards. I’m setting myself a target of getting to the end of the week 2 content by the end of February, and get through two weeks worth of content each calendar week after that.


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