Encode: Learn to Code

I typically have a hard time sitting down and teaching myself, but this app feels so engaging to me. It splits up the lessons into chapters which gives me a goal to reach within day or even a week if I’m really busy. And the actual lessons themselves keeps my habit of not being able to focus in check. It reinforces previous lessons in each lesson as kind of like a recap which I most definitely need after I miss a few days. And the ability to practice what I learn to make sure I know how to put my knowledge to the test is amazing. Thank you for making an app that works for me!

This app was one I stumbled on by chance. I had gone to the App Store to update my apps and when opening the store I happened to glimpse this app as I was switching the screen over to download the updates. I’ve been trying to learn programming for about a month now. So I went back and took a look at the app. I’ve bought 4 books over the last month hoping each one would give me what I was looking for - the syntax of programming. They were all tedious and wordy and hard to pull out the nuggets. This app does just what I want it to do. I was happy to pay the $6 for the full app after paying more than $50 per book, this felt like a steal. And if you already get the logic but just don’t have definitions of the words, then this app is the place to go. The logic of programming has always been natural for me, but I didn’t understand what the words meant. Or why they were put in certain places...the if/else statements and the Boolean statements...these were all terms I’d heard, but no one had cared to define or could clearly define without fire hosing me. This app takes it in small, easy steps. I’m almost through all of it and I’ve had it for less than 24 hours. I’ve learned more from this app in the 4.5 hours I’ve spent on it than I did from days and days spent in the books I bought. This app is great for someone who has zero programming background and needs to understand what the words mean while learning the order of symbols and what goes where, when. It’s great for getting your feet wet.

I wanted to learn coding during my commute. But so many free to start apps require a constant Internet connection, and my train is often stuck underground without service. I greatly appreciate that you can use Encode even offline. (It being offline also means that it can't load the ads, if you find that annoying.) The lessons included are indeed simple, and I absolutely think if you're an intermediate study in JavaScript or HTML/CSS you won't get much out of this. But as a beginner cramming these lessons in to/from work, who was only ever able to make good old 90's GeoCities webpages at best, the bite-sized chunks it's broken down into makes computing language much easier for to process. The extra challenges as reinforcement and the compound lessons putting everything together is worth the $4.99 unlock, but even if you're looking to just start learning for free you could do much worse than Encode.