Resources
Starting out?
New to programming? No problem! Hackathons are a great opportunity to learn new things.
Building projects is a great way to learn as you go. This page contains links to free stuff and
resources to help HackOHI/O participants out, but it definitely doesn't end here.
Use your favorite search engines to find new tools, tutorials, programming languages, and more - and if
you ever get stuck or need suggestions,
call a
mentor!
If you're new to programming, we suggest building your own personal website first.
It's a great way to get into development by getting you to create and publish your first real project -
and it can serve as the start of a place for you to continue to try new things and experiment.
Free Stuff
There is a ton of free stuff out there for developers - especially students! Check out this list we've
compiled together:
GitHub Student Developer Pack
A package of great developer tools, including Amazon Web Services credit, unlimited GitHub repositories,
waived Strip transaction fees, and more.
Microsoft Imagine
Free Microsoft development tools for students.
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services is a huge suite of cloud services, including hosting, computing, storage,
networking, and more. They even provide a
free
tier to get you started.
ArcGIS
ArcGIS is a powerful cloud-based mapping platform. If you're interested in creating projects that
utilize GIS and maps, ArcGIS is a great option. They even provide a free trial period for you to get
started.
General Resources
There are a ton of free online resources to help you out with whatever you're working on. Here are a few
comprehensive sites that provide all sorts of valuable help:
Stack Overflow
A question-and-answer site where people ask and answer programming questions.
Codeacademy
An interactive platform that provides free coding classes for 12 programming and markup languages.
Safari Books Online
Ohio State students have free access to a variety of eBooks on computer science.
If you're not an OSU student, check out your college's library - it may have something similar!
How2Hack by Cisco
Ready to ignite your apps with communications using Cisco Spark and Tropo?
Follow these steps and you’ll be up and running quickly
Text Editors
Before you even get started, you need a place to write code!
A text editor is a piece of software that facilities the writing of code. Note that programs like
Microsoft Word and Google Docs are word processors, not text editors!
There are a ton of text editors out there; over time, you gain exposure to more and more and acquire
your favorites.
Here's a list of some of the most popular you can try out:
Version Control
When you write code, you want an easy way to track changes and collaborate with others.
Git is a version control tool that does just that. It keeps track of all the changes to each file, and
keeps a running history over time.
GitHub is a code hosting platform that works with Git to cleanly store and view projects online at
GitHub.com.
Check out
this GitHub
tutorial to learn the basics of GitHub and how to use it.
Web Development
Basic web development starts with three things: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
HTML is a markup language where you define the elements that go into a page.
CSS stands for "Cascading Style Sheets"; it gives you control to style, format, and position your HTML
elements.
JavaScript adds behavior to a page, such as working forms, dragging and dropping, animating things, and
so on.
Getting Started
Codeacademy Tutorial:
Make
a Website
Codeacademy Tutorial:
Make an
Interactive Website
Resources
JavaScripting - Directory of JavaScript
libraries, frameworks, and plugins.
Bootstrap, one of the most
popular HTML, CSS, and JS frameworks.
Chart.js, a simple and
customizable charting JavaScript library.
Android
iOS
Java
C#