Lesson 0

An overview of the course

This page works best on desktop or tablet

Welcome to the course! Here's everything you need to know before you get started.

What you should know coming in

The short answer: nothing. This set of lessons is here to provide a baseline of knowledge about how programming works so that you can continue on to other courses with tools to help you understand them better. Having some basic knowledge of computers will make this course a little bit easier.

What you will learn

In this introductory set of lessons, you will learn the basics of how computers work and the foundations of computer programming. We'll answer all of the following questions:

How do computers follow instructions?
What is a programming language?
How can I read and understand code?
How can I think about problem solving for computers?

How to follow these lessons

You can take these lessons at your own pace; Just make sure to follow them in order so that you don't miss out on critical information. Pay attention to keywords that highlight important topics that you should be aware of. You'll also come across various kinds of interactive elements to illustrate concepts and provide examples.

Finally, many of the interactive elements are designed solely for desktop use and may not work well, or at all, on tablets or phones.