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First time I ever programmed was using Codecademy around 2013. I was always an average student in school. Never had the motivation/curiosity to study since I f

First time I ever programmed was using Codecademy around 2013. I was always an average student in school. Never had the motivation/curiosity to study since I felt it was all pointless. Never had any programming/computer classes in school. I completed the python course that was available at the time that eventually guides you to build your own version of battleship with 2 players. It was an eye-opening experience for me. I started to view all my math/chemistry/physics problems as “programming problems”, it really made learning fun for me. My grades changed drastically for the better with little extra effort. And more importantly Im now working as a SWE years later. So thank you Codecademy :)

bredren 5y ago
Thanks for sharing this. Do you still have your code for your battleship game? All of my earliest programming projects have been lost to time.
- 300bps 5y ago
  One of my few regrets is leaving old computers/disks at my parents house when I moved out. I didn’t value them at all at the time - they were old crappy computers. So my Commodore 64 and 128 and all the software I spent my childhood writing were thrown away. I had a full BBS program that I wrote when I was 14 along with a half dozen BBS games. Would love to see that code!
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    I lost all my youth code to a monkey virus (nasty boot sector propegator that someone placed on a computer in the college where my mom was studying nursing). Before I knew what was going on it had spread to every floppy and hard drive that I had and had destroyed all the data. Three years of work gone. At that age it felt like most of my life had evaporated. It was almost ten years before I started building serious personal projects again.
- JCharante 5y ago
  Maybe that's for the better... my code from when I was 15 years old haunts my GitHub, and that's not even my first GitHub account.
- WoahNoun 5y ago
  My first major programming project was in high school circa 2005. A basic graphing calculator written in JAVA with Spring and all the UI elements made in MS Paint. I wish I still had that code.
starwind 5y ago
Another thanks to Codeacademy :) I got my feet wet and learned basic Python through them. Really got me over my fear of programming being crazy hard and the my fear doing something "wrong" to mess up my computer. Took a couple more years before I really got invested, but codeacademy cracked opened a door which led to a few more. The other day I had the top down after cutting out of work early to go flying, and thought “life is good.”
gshubert17 5y ago
I was teaching a high school computer course when I discovered Codecademy in 2012. We spent three weeks using their introduction to JavaScript programming. Students learned basic programming working at their own pace. Everyone was engaged, and most students enjoyed this part of the course. I worked all over the room, answering questions and seeing how students were doing. The site kept track of progress with game-like points and badges. The last week of the semester, students created two interactive web pages using what they'd learned. These two projects were similar to programming labs I had done in past years, but the instructions were much shorter because Codecademy prepared them much better; and the results were better because students were more competent and felt more confident from their Codecademy work. In subsequent years I continued to use Codecademy for JavaScript and added HTML instruction around 2014 based on their site too. Overall I think hundreds of students benefited. Many thanks.

bredren 5y ago

Thanks for sharing this. Do you still have your code for your battleship game? All of my earliest programming projects have been lost to time.

300bps 5y ago
One of my few regrets is leaving old computers/disks at my parents house when I moved out. I didn’t value them at all at the time - they were old crappy computers. So my Commodore 64 and 128 and all the software I spent my childhood writing were thrown away. I had a full BBS program that I wrote when I was 14 along with a half dozen BBS games. Would love to see that code!
- datavirtue 5y ago
  I lost all my youth code to a monkey virus (nasty boot sector propegator that someone placed on a computer in the college where my mom was studying nursing). Before I knew what was going on it had spread to every floppy and hard drive that I had and had destroyed all the data. Three years of work gone. At that age it felt like most of my life had evaporated. It was almost ten years before I started building serious personal projects again.
JCharante 5y ago
Maybe that's for the better... my code from when I was 15 years old haunts my GitHub, and that's not even my first GitHub account.
WoahNoun 5y ago
My first major programming project was in high school circa 2005. A basic graphing calculator written in JAVA with Spring and all the UI elements made in MS Paint. I wish I still had that code.

starwind 5y ago

Another thanks to Codeacademy :) I got my feet wet and learned basic Python through them. Really got me over my fear of programming being crazy hard and the my fear doing something "wrong" to mess up my computer. Took a couple more years before I really got invested, but codeacademy cracked opened a door which led to a few more. The other day I had the top down after cutting out of work early to go flying, and thought “life is good.”

gshubert17 5y ago

I was teaching a high school computer course when I discovered Codecademy in 2012. We spent three weeks using their introduction to JavaScript programming. Students learned basic programming working at their own pace. Everyone was engaged, and most students enjoyed this part of the course. I worked all over the room, answering questions and seeing how students were doing. The site kept track of progress with game-like points and badges. The last week of the semester, students created two interactive web pages using what they'd learned. These two projects were similar to programming labs I had done in past years, but the instructions were much shorter because Codecademy prepared them much better; and the results were better because students were more competent and felt more confident from their Codecademy work. In subsequent years I continued to use Codecademy for JavaScript and added HTML instruction around 2014 based on their site too. Overall I think hundreds of students benefited. Many thanks.