I used Codecademy for the first seven weeks. I started learning to program in January 2012, so the timing was perfect - I was their target market.<p>It was fun and interesting for a while. But the instructions began to get cumbersome. You had to read 3-4 paragraphs just to learn that they wanted you to write a simple, one line loop.<p>I spent more time reading instructions than thinking about or writing code.<p>I was using K & R at the same time, and the contrast was instructive. In K & R you're given a concise description of a feature, and then a short exercise that forces you to <i>think</i> about how to use it.<p>In the final few weeks, my only motivation to keep going with Codecademy was the thought that "at least I'll have these badges that show what I know". That was a pretty big warning sign.<p>I stopped when I realized I wasn't even learning the concepts in the lessons. There simply wasn't enough coding practice for them to stick.<p>I haven't been there for a few weeks, so perhaps things have gotten better. But from what I saw, they needed to work on cutting out the cruft in their instructions. Pedagogy is difficult.
I don't know why Codecademy gets any attention. After seeing a number of items about it, I attempted to use Codecademy to brush up on javascript. My conclusion: it's a fine idea poorly executed and basically useless as a learning tool. Pure hype.<p>FWIW, I don't mean to be caustic. I honestly can't believe that anyone who writes posivitely about it has used it.
I'm just poking my head in here to sing Udacity's praises. Their CS-101 class is phenomenal; it is hands down the best intro to CS on the web. The fact that it's free is just icing on the cake. The 1 unit per week for 7 weeks pace is demanding -- and I think users would benefit from the doubling of the course length -- but the videos, professors, community, quiz frequency, and challenging homework make for one hell of a learning experience I've never seen before online.
I'm a web designer who really wants to learn JS to be able to fully implement my designs on the front end (I know HTML/CSS and can edit a jQuery script to fit my needs). I feel I am in their target market, or close to it, but they failed at keeping me a student. I stopped going to Codecademy because I could no longer understand the instructions, and because it was buggy. I often had to ask my boyfriend, who is an engineer, to explain the instructions to me because they were so hard to understand for someone with a very limited programming background.<p>I've started with Udacity CS101 and it's much better. I still think the instruction from the professor isn't the greatest, but it's good enough for me to be able to keep progressing, even if it means I have to repeat a unit to understand the concepts.
possibly offtopic but as a non-beginner javascript developer I find some things taught to be not best practices. its possible that the user is being guided up to a place where he fully understands "this is why this method is better". an obious example is the use of global variables and functions whose main purpose is to act on global variables. while not technically wrong, it is definitely a no no in modern development.<p>From what I went through I would say its a good platform to learn syntax and keyword definitions e.g. "this is a function" but it doesnt address the application part. and no having a step by step project at the end of the lesson does not address the application part. application needs to teach how to think in programming, how to take problems conveyed in english and solve them with programing.<p>lastly, ive found technical errors in the way instructions are worded. what they are asking for in english is not exactly what they expect as the code solution. needless to say this frustrates beginners.<p>its very hard to teach.
No magic shortcuts. It may seem cynical but please read Norvig's Learn to Program in 10 Years: <a href="http://norvig.com/21-days.html" rel="nofollow">http://norvig.com/21-days.html</a>.
I wrote about the design side of CodeYear on my blog: <a href="http://sachagreif.com/how-i-designed-codeyear-com-in-1-hour/" rel="nofollow">http://sachagreif.com/how-i-designed-codeyear-com-in-1-hour/</a>
It would be an interesting study to try and understand the behavior and personalities behind the 100% completion rates so far. Most of code year signups happened around new year resolution time - compliance can't be much different than that of a typical gym with a great offer. But those who have been consistently at it, must be special.<p>The 0% completion numbers might look exceptionally bad for Codeyear as there was so much of hype surrounding it back then (Bloomberg and all..). But that is understandable, and the founders could not have done much about it.
i stopped doing the lessons because of a lot of crashes. things like including print statements would cause Chrome to invoke my physical printer.<p>i am curious how far the people who signed up during this big spurt are getting through the program, and if it can be evaluated against competitors like Treehouse?<p>overall i am a big fan of competition in the e-learning space, because it's a topic that hasn't receive much attention in the past (Kahn Academy is likely to thank).
My guess as to how they got users that fast? A lot of people wanting to learn programming to make higher pay, plus, a spike in folks wanting to start web startups but are not already a programmer (with a good percentage of those excited by Facebook's story). I've had to review resumes and interview folks for software jobs before, and a surprising percentage can't seem to program or not know what they're talking about. Lure of money is strong.