Today, I was moved by a video on YouTube by code.org:

This wasn't the first time I'd heard about the idea of teaching people around us to code. I had also seen the same thing on a recent TED talk.

I had also seen an interesting video on YouTube, taken from a JS conference:

In this article, I'd like to go over some of the most popular coding schools which now offer free courses. After reading this article, I hope you will feel just as inclined as I do to get the ones you love and are close to to start coding.

The List

• Code Academy
• jQuery Hands-On Introduction Course
• Codeschool
• Code.org
• Khan Academy
• Standford Online Courses
• Introduction to Computer Science at Harvard
• Udacity
• Computer Club House
• Coder Dojo
• CodeSchool
• Treehouse
• Girl Develop It
• Girls Who Code

Why You Should Code

Though I presume a lot of people viewing this may already be coders, if you're not, coding is a very fun activity if you make it one. Coding presents you with problems that are similar to real-world problems, and you have the ability to start over and try again, without facing any repercussions. In this way, we are free to make mistakes (in fact, mistakes are encouraged).

I think that teaching more people around the world to code will improve the overall quality of all of our products created by code (machines, software, electronics, etc.). A big problem in today's society is the lack of multi-disciplinary expertise; most programmers come with specialty training with degrees in computer science, which highly emphasizes those skills required. I'm not saying that having these skills isn't useful; rather, I think diversifying the group of people coding will help to improve the quality of products out there that is designed to reach those kinds of people. For example, why do we have someone with very little knowledge about Zoos designing the website for zoos? What if it was a zoo expert instead? Teaching those around us to code will help them to think like us, and especially in the work place, it will allow them to understand the limitations on what is and isn't possible within given time frames.