Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.

(Every week or so, I post a bunch of resources to get you going with a digital project of some kind. In this case, it’s programming..)

Programming, writing software and web code, is going to become more and more important as the world turns digital – everything from art to software requires some programming knowledge, and there are tons of different languages, thoughts, and methods out there.

Luckily for you (and me, certainly), they’re not that tough to learn. And, thanks to some great resources out there, you can learn them right from the computer screen, without paying a nickel.

Becoming a champion programmer is certainly more than a weekend-long process, but with only a small time investment, you can learn a surprising amount. Based on what I’ve read, heard, and used myself, here are some of the best resources for beginner (and expert) programmers out there.

• Programmer 101: Teach Yourself to Code – A fantastic, as usual, guide from Lifehacker explaining programming at a higher level. It details the most important languages, some great resources, and a ton of examples of how you can get into coding.

• Introduction to HTML – a great beginner’s guide to HTML, the code that makes up most of the Web pages you see. If you want to write webpages, this is the place to start.

• HTML in 21 Minutes – a fantastic overview, in plain English, of what HTML is and how it works. The hardest part about programming, for me, is understanding the logic and structure behind it, and this does a great job of outlining that.

• 20 Websites to Help You Learn and Master CSS – This article, from Six Revisions, points to a lot of the resources I’d include here, so I’ll just give you the whole kit and kaboodle. CSS is the styling of HTML, controlling how it actually looks on your page, and these are great resources to get you started making beautiful websites.

• Google Code University – Google has compiled a bunch of tutorials, lectures and walkthroughs from some great colleges and Universities across the country, and created a huge resource to learn about things like AJAX (which lets you change things on a webpage without refreshing the page) and algorithms (the processes that govern how, say, Google finds search results). There’s an amazing amount of material here, from some incredible people.

• How to be a Programmer – this is the electronic version of a book by Robert Read that’s not about how to program, but how to be a programmer. There are a ton of skills involved in programming other than knowing a language (debugging, fixing errors, is the first chapter, followed by things like “how to tell the hard from the impossible”), and it’s both an informative and entertaining read about what being a programmer really entails.

• Stack Overflow – what better way to learn how to program than to see what programmers do and talk about? That’s what Stack Overflow is all about – it’s a question and answer site, exclusively for programmers. Much of the discussion is way over my head, at least, but it’s a fantastic look at what programmers are doing, how they’re doing it, and what problems they’re having.

Between now and my next post, you’re not going to learn how to program. I’ll be honest about that. If you’ve only got a few minutes, try HTML – it’s simple, easy to figure out, and you can start using it immediately.

In only a couple of hours, you can wade in, learn a little, and then tell your friends “yeah, I code a little,” and they’ll be all “woah, you’re cool,” and you’ll be all “yeah.” So you’ve got that going for you…, which is nice. Enjoy your weekend!

Do you program? Where’d you learn or sharpen your coding skills?