#1243 overall
Creative Programming for Digital Media & Mobile Apps
Coursera
1 recommender · 1 thread · recommended in 1 year, 2014 · score 0.7
A Coursera course that teaches programming through making creative digital media and mobile app projects, taught in the Processing language.
The commenter calls it beginner friendly and says it strongly encourages learning by making, arguing Processing is a good language for an introductory software course.
Web & Mobile Developmentbeginnerproject-based#processing#creative coding#beginner programming#mobile apps#digital media
Recommendations by year
20062026
'Newbie' covers many experience levels - from afraid to turn the computer on to moving beyond Excel pivot table macros. People need different degrees of handholding.
Not necessarily my favorite, Coursera's Programming for Everybody [1] moves forward very very slowly. Great for some people, drying paint for others. It is taught in Python.
A course I think is great is Coursera's Introduction to Systematic Program Design [2] based on Felleisen's How to Design Programs introductory text. It is possible to register for the last session, from a year ago, and complete the work on your own. It is taught in Racket.
Another course that takes a learn-by-making approach is Coursera's Creative Programming for Digital Media & Mobile Apps [3]. It is beginner friendly and really encourages "getting into it". It is taught in Processing, and in some ways I think Processing is the ideal language for an introductory course in Software Engineering - it is pared down like Racket's student languages, provides just a pinch of Java pain, facilitates the production of really interesting output, and the environment provides a fast edit-compile-run loop.
For a person who is more oriented toward scientific or mathematical problems, Coursera's R Programming [4] might by a good fit.
Among the various Python Courses, I would probably go with Udacity's Design of Computer Programs: Programming Principles [5] because it is taught by Peter Norvig.
All that said, a book may be better than an open-enrollment class for many people, and there's a lot more variation.
[1] https://www.coursera.org/course/pythonlearn
[2] https://www.coursera.org/course/programdesign
[3] https://www.coursera.org/course/digitalmedia
[4] https://www.coursera.org/course/rprog
[5] https://www.udacity.com/course/cs212