I work for a small start-up in a completely non-technical role. I have no programming ability and previously had no desire, but since I've started working here

I work for a small start-up in a completely non-technical role. I have no programming ability and previously had no desire, but since I've started working here I've had the desire to learn some. Until Codecamedy came along it was probably just going to be a project I continuously put off until something else changed to make it happen. But now I'm signed up to get the Code Year emails, it's something I'll probably remember to do from week to week. Anyway, back to the usability. I agree with the author that it's easy to make mistakes and feel confused with learning to code on Codecademy. But from what I've gathered so far it's easy to make mistakes and feel confused with learning to code, period. Programming involves a lot of testing, of trial and error, to come to the right answer, or more relevantly; a better answer. Codeademy is giving people the opportunity to ease into that sense of trial and error, but it needs to be there nonetheless, because that is the reality of programming. If you make a mistake, such as typing with a close bracket quote, and then you get an error message, what you do from there is probably a good signal of whether you should continue learning to code. If that happens to you five times, and you keep thinking "huh, why did that happen?" and then continue working on it until you figure it out, there's a good chance you have the sort of insatiable quest for understanding that you probably need to be a programmer. On the other hand, if you give up after a few tries, then it's likely that you don't have that same need to understand the logic behind it. Codecademy is obviously trying to bring programming to a wider audience, but it shouldn't simplify it to the point where it's not giving a realistic picture of the very nature of programming. You can choose to take the stairs over diving in; but you still gotta get in the pool.