I have been quite interested in learning some coding on my own, specifically thinking about VBA to further enhance my excel skills. Although I do not necessarily need to know programming in my job, I thought knowing VBA might give me more ideas as to how certain processes can be improved. Also, I think it's a great way to give my brain some intellectual stimulation and will likely benefit my career down the road.
Does anyone have experiences learning coding on your own? If so, what do you use? I have looked into Udemy but some courses are quite expensive (~$100). It'll be great to hear some opinions from you guys on what materials you have used to study (a good balance of quality and cost). I do not have any programming background other than one Python class I took during my freshman year, which I have entirely forgotten.
I'm currently learning Ruby on codecademy.com. It's completely free.
I've also heard good things about codeacademy. additionally, coursera has some good free courses
If you know how to use the Macro Recorder, start there, and go to the VBA editor. I think shortcut Alt+F11. You can see code that generates as you perform actions, and as you see how things are done, just googling how to make coding more efficient will give you further insight into basic code functions. I have found I can pretty much make any macro do what I want, since I know all of the higher end advanced excel processes, since I can record it and see what code generates. I am basically just automating my manual actions to make them repeatable.
Utilize W3schools and Stack Overflow - both have great resources for any level of coder. I too started out on Codecademy, but the real trick is to get off of that platform, find yourself a decent text editor like Notepad++ or SublimeText 3, along with a language's tag list, so you can practice generating your own code. That's how I quickly was able to do HTML and CSS integration and helped me get into some basic scripting with JS and PHP. Truthfully, VBA is probably the most useful language considering the amount of Excel work we do on a daily basis - so I'd start with that tag list - learn the basics like loops, arrays, conditionals, formatting, etc. - and then do "practice problems," which the Stack community could certainly help generate for you.
You can't go wrong with Udemy or CodeAcademy. When I first taught myself to code, I had to do it the old fashioned way with books like the K&R (The C Programming Language) Manual by the late Dennis Ritchie. When I picked up Visual Basic, Java and took a class or two on C++ in college, I bought books by Deitel and Deitel. I would highly recommend them if you want to go the book learning route. They are really easy to understand and make sure everything makes sense if you just want to start to understand it.
If you want to get your feet wet and figure out if programming is for you, I recommend going through a book called "learn python the hard way". It will take you through all of the basics of programming (command line, if/loops statements, variables, etc) and also help you make some simple programs (game, web scraper, website) in a structured and linear format. The website offers the reading material for free (but has some videos and other services a-la carte or whatever you call it)
After which, you will have a good jumping off point to keep things rolling with some of the more advanced sources listed above (stack-overflow, some dense books, etc)
The best way to learn programming is to find a project that you are interested in, and dive straight in. Unfortunately, it is hard to do if you don't know the basics (which is the whole point of going through some simple material at first)
I will definitely look into udemy and codeacademy. I have never even used macro myself so I'll perhaps get myself familiarized with it and move on to vba. Just hoping I will get to learn them in the most economical way.
I'm not a pro-coder, but from what i see on the internet it's a much more easier and efficient way to learn coding, i recommend Coursera, i wish i had that back while i was learning code. If someone is a first-time coder i recommend Python.
Team Treehouse is also a good resource- their courses run the gamut on nearly everything, to a certain level. They have a free 30-day trial you can use as well which gives you more than enough time to finish a course or two to see if you like it. Personally since I'm a poor student I just used multiple 30-day trials in a row...
VB is super easy to learn if you're pretty good with Excel. I was able to pick it up quickly by using Google and recording steps here or there and reviewing the code.
Also - python is great (codecademy)
I'm in the middle of a VBA course from Udemy (the trick is to find when they have $10 specials, which is pretty often). I've also dabbled in Python from Codecademy, but I don't practice enough so I've forgotten it.
Anyone have thoughts on Lynda.com courses? Through my internship I have free access to all of Lynda's video courses (at least until my internship ends) and there are a couple on VBA that I'm thinking of taking advantage of.
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