Software engineering is a great tech career path for beginners. Our resources cover coding tips for tech newcomers, comprehensive guides to coding in multiple languages, programming language recommendations based on your career, and other resources to help you refine your skills and get one step closer to a software engineering career.
Software Engineering
sudo Command: A Guide for Beginners
What is the sudo Command? “Make a sandwich.” No. “Sudo make a sandwich.” Sure. This is a recurring joke in the programming community. This article will help you understand the sudo joke. Sudo is a command that runs any Linux…
C – Booleans
Originally, booleans did not have built-in support in C. With the advent of the C99 standard about ten years ago, C added a _Bool type. In this article, we’ll go over several ways that you can represent boolean values in…
What is a Network Interface Card?
Have you ever wondered what connects your computer to a network? Behind the scenes, there is a component called a Network Interface Card that is hard at work. This hardware component is used to allow your computer to connect to…
Bash Aliases for Beginners
After using the command line for a while, you will start to notice that there are a lot of commands that you repeat often. Some of these commands, like “cd” and “ls” are just part-and-parcel of working with the Linux…
How to Use the Linux Cat Command
The cat command in Linux is not as cute as a real cat, but it plays a key role in Linux. The cat command allows you to view the contents of a text file from a Linux command line. In…
How to Use the Linux Grep Command
Have you ever thought that the search features offered by text editors are rather simple? It’s not just you. It can be quite difficult to search through files, especially if you want to search for text that matches a pattern.…
Is Coding Fun or Boring?
Asking a question like “is coding boring?” is like asking “is swimming boring?” The answer depends on the person. Coding can be tedious and arduous for some—but highly rewarding to others. With that established, we can’t definitively say if coding…
Best Android Programming Languages
According to Statista, there were over 2.7 billion smartphone users in 2017. The same study found that over $41 billion was generated in revenue by mobile games alone. The mobile app market is strong and now is as good a…
GameMaker Studio 2 Tutorial: A Simple 5 Step Guide to GMS 2
Some of the best advice I’ve ever received as an indie developer is to start your project right away. Large triple-A studios start with a long design, concept, and prototyping process. While that process is effective for large studios, it…
How To Make A Simple 2D Game In Unity
Sometimes the best way to get into game design is to jump right in. Getting to see the results of your own work moving on the screen is exciting, and that creative excitement is the best fuel to get into…
What is a Hypervisor?
Before virtualization and hypervisors, most computers could only run one operating system at a time. This means that you would have to pick between Linux, Windows, Mac, or a server-side operating system that you wanted to run on a computer.…
Bash if…else: A Guide for Beginners
Conditional statements are an important part of every coding language. They allow you to write code that runs only when certain conditions are met. This means that you can have a program which returns different responses depending on whether certain…
What Is a Server?
The word server gets thrown around in many different contexts when it comes to computers. Servers are used in gaming to connect players with each other on multiplayer matches; servers are used by businesses to process their emails. There's a…
Bash Functions: A Guide
How to Write a Bash Function A function is a block of code that performs a particular task. Once you have defined a function in a program, it can be reused as many times as you want. Functions are useful…
What Is XML?
PDF. JSON. DOC. Those are three of the many different ways in which data is stored on computers. Another one that you might have seen is XML. If you look around your computer, you’ve probably got a few XML files…
Bash while Loop: A Beginner’s Guide
While loops. While loops. While loops. I could have written a bash program to write those sentences instead of writing while loops three times over myself. Loops are a foundational component of most programming languages. They allow you to automate…
What is a Relational Database?
You’ve probably come across the term database at some point in your life. Databases are a set of data that is stored on a computer. Hospitals use databases to track the treatments they administer; accountancy firms use databases to keep…
How to Deploy an Application to Heroku
You’ve done the heavy lifting and built a web application, congratulations! After you’ve created your web application on your local machine, your next step is to put it online. Once your application is online, it will have its own web…
What is a RESTful API?
At some point in your career as a developer, you’ve likely encountered RESTful APIs. But, do you know what they are? How do they work? In this guide, we discuss the essentials of REST APIs, covering everything you need to…
What is CRUD?
An API should fill four types of functions. It should be able to create new data and read, update, and delete existing data. In computer science, we refer to these options as CRUD. The CRUD method is essential in building…
What is HTTP?
You’ve probably come across the acronym HTTP at some point in your life. All you need to do is look in the address bar of your computer and you’ll see https:// before the Career Karma domain name. HTTP is everywhere…
What is cURL?
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are an essential part of the web. These tools allow you to interact with other platforms. For example, you can use the Twitter API to post Tweets or display a list of Tweets on your timeline.…
What is SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)?
How do developers make sure their applications meet all specifications? When do they test their code? What is the appropriate time frame for requirement analysis? Without answers to these questions, software developers would be at a loss whenever they worked…
Linux find Command: A Guide
When you’re starting to use the Linux command line, you’ll encounter the question: How do I find files using Linux? It’s not as if there is a search bar you can use in your command line to find a file…
Linux ls Command: A Guide
One of the most fundamental commands you need to know when using the Linux command line is the ls command. This command allows you to see what files and directories exist within the file system. It also provides additional information…
What is an SDK?
Whether or not you’ve worked with one in the past, it’s safe to assume that at least one application you’ve used was built using a Software Development Kit. Software developers use SDKs to create programs for specific platforms. SDKs are…
What is the MVC Framework?
Software engineers like to come up with ways to organize code. The more organized a codebase is, the easier it will be to navigate. Having an organized codebase will make it easy to identify and fix bugs quickly and implement…
Linux Symbolic Links: An Introduction
You’ve probably used the shortcut feature on your desktop at some point. Maybe you’ve got a button on your desktop that links to your “Documents” folder. It’s true that shortcuts make it much easier to navigate through your system; you…
ssh Command: How to Work Remotely Using SSH
While you’ll do most of your programming on your local machine, there may be times when you need to access another computer remotely. Once you’ve written a web application, you may want to upload it to a web server and…
What is localhost?
Localhost. What a peculiar domain name. There’s no “.com” or “.co” at the end of this one. Localhost stands alone as its own domain. As a developer or a techie, you’ve probably encountered localhost at some point. Perhaps you’ve seen…
