So you just started looking into coding but you don’t know what operating system you should start learning in? Or perhaps not. Maybe you didn’t even realize this was a subject of debate.

Do some minor googling on the issue though and you quickly find that not only does the debate exist but that plenty of people have put their two cents in about it. (An example if you dare.)

When I first started looking into the world of coding, I ran into this issue pretty quickly. If you read the link, then you may know what my own answer to this question is going to be.

Basically the most important thing about learning to code is to just start doing it, in whatever operating system you have, on whatever hardware you have available to you.

Just. Get. Started.

Now that’s out of the way I’ll admit that actually this is a two part answer.

I do believe there are a lot of reasons why before or after someone starts learning to code, they should try and learn how to do so within a Linux operating system. I myself started and continue to work on Ubuntu. I could give you a list of endless reasons why this worked for me, but suffice to say I’m not the only fledgling coder that made the leap to Linux before I’d really learned to fly.

If you’re not quite ready to leave the nest yet or just aren’t sure about having a Linux machine or even a Linux partition on a Windows machine (how I started) but want to give it a try, I would highly recommend a Koding integrated development environment (IDE) account.

Koding’s IDE lets you have a virtual linux machine to play around with and code right in your web browser. You can configure your virtual machine however you like, install software packages, save your work, and generally ‘bash’ things out until you get feel for how a Linux operating system could/would/will work for you.

You can log into your account from any computer running any operating system anywhere as long as you have somewhat stable internet access. Best of all: it’s free and you don’t have to worry about destroying or even having your own private hardware to run it on!

If you ever do decide to take the leap however, then I’ll be covering partitioning a windows laptop in my next entry!