Welcome To HB CodeLink

This self study website will guide you to learning programming in line with the HB CodeLink curriculum.

Programming Languages

The 2 officially used languages are Python and JavaScript. We will be mostly using Python in this tutorial. Here is a list of other programming languages you might want to use.

C++

Benefits: Fast, Widely Used, Great for desktop and game development Drawbacks: Much higher learning curve then other languages Download: https://isocpp.org/

Java

Benefits: Great for OOP, Good for Desktop and Mobile development, Amazing Job Market Drawbacks: Very verbose and slower than other languages Download: https://java.com

Python

Benefits: Easy to learn, Widely used, Great for AI and Machine Learning Drawbacks: Extremely slow, no strict types

JavaScript/TypeScript

Benefits: Easy to learn, Widely used, can be used to make any applications Drawbacks: Very slow, need TypeScript for error checking Download: https://nodejs.org

Rust

Benefits: Extremely Fast, Great type checking, Modern, Great for any desktop or Server side app, Endorsed by Sachkeerat Drawbacks: Not a fully mature language and reduced job market

Download: https://www.rust-lang.org/

Go

Benefits: Quite fast, Great developer experience, great for server applications, backed by Google Drawbacks: Not as much support, while being slower than rust

Download: https://go.dev/

Swift

Benefits: Easy to learn, Great developer experience, Amazing for iOS apps, made by Apple Drawbacks: You need a Mac to develop Swift apps, Only used for iOS and macOS

Download: https://www.swift.org/

C

Benefits: Trusted for 40 years, Blazing fast, Used by many companies, great for OS and making your own language Drawbacks: Extremely Old, Poor memory management and high learning curve

Download: https://gcc.gnu.org/ or https://clang.llvm.org/

Resources

These resources are NOT language specific, but are still great

W3 Schools

Geeks For Geeks

The Odin Project

Programming With Mosh

Bro Code

FreeCodeCamp

LeetCode

HackerRank

MDN Web Docs

Microsoft Learn

Jet Brains Academy

IDEs/Editors

These IDEs will be ranked by learning curve, price, features and community support. We highly recommend VSCode or JetBrains (Make sure to apply a student).

VS Code

Learning Curve (5/10) Features (8/10) Price ($0) Community Support (10/10)

JetBrains IDE

Learning Curve (7/10) Features (10/10) Price ($0 for Students) ($800 per year otherwise) Community Support (9/10)

Links: https://www.jetbrains.com/

Free student plan: https://www.jetbrains.com/community/education/#students

Click Apply and click University Email address. Make sure to USE YOUR PDSB EMAIL FOR SIGNUP

Vim/NeoVim

Learning Curve (10/10) Features (7/10) Price ($0) Community Support (8/10)

Link: https://neovim.io/

Notepad ++

Learning Curve (2/10) Features (5/10) Price ($0) Community Support (4/10)

Link: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Zed

Learning Curve (4/10) Features (7/10) Price ($0) Community Support (4/10)

Link https://zed.dev/

Visual Studio

Learning Curve (8/10) Features (10/10) Price ($0) Community Support (9/10)

XCode

Learning Curve (8/10) Features (8/10) (Only iOS/macOS apps) Price ($0) Community Support (6/10)

Eclipse (No)

Learning Curve (7/10 but why would you learn Eclipse?) Features (0/10) Price ($0 but why) Community Support (0/10)