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I spent probably 10 hours on codecademy. I've done PHP, Ruby and some CS classes in college, but day to day I don't write that much code. I wanted to get some

by sudonim 14y ago

I spent probably 10 hours on codecademy. I've done PHP, Ruby and some CS classes in college, but day to day I don't write that much code. I wanted to get some fundamentals on Javascript to be more capable with D3.js. If I didn't have all of that previous knowledge, I would find it really difficult to get going. I wouldn't call Codecademy overrated. But I'd say that geeks like me (and probably you guys) are the wrong people to be evaluating Codecademy. If they're not testing out their teaching methods on n00bs, they should get on that right now.

teach 14y ago
I'm a high school computer science teacher, and I use CodeCademy in my intro Web Development course. For my use case, it's not bad, but the students are working through the lessons in class with me there to help them when they get stuck. And they get stuck a LOT. The lessons are improving (slowly!), but they've still got a LONG way to go. I can't imagine anyone is teaching themselves to code anything using CodeCademy that couldn't have done just as well using a tutorial online. Anyone with the natural aptitude to make it through their lessons could teach themselves with damn near anything.
- michelleclsun 14y ago
  I have the same experience as a student at Hackbright, a 10 week programming course. Prior to hackbright I took a lot of codecademy courses, but it never got me from newbie to 'yes I can do this' programmer. Yes, I can follow the exercise and figure out how to pass each quiz, however, I believe CodeCademy essentially suggests that you have to follow 1 way to do things to be correct, which is not how problem solving (and programming) works. At Hackbright however, I found learning with CodeCademy to refresh some knowledge is helpful, especially with a teacher around to ask questions. Most of the time, the questions confirm that my solution is also valid, but it's just different from the CodeCademy answer.

by sudonim 14y ago

teach 14y ago

I'm a high school computer science teacher, and I use CodeCademy in my intro Web Development course. For my use case, it's not bad, but the students are working through the lessons in class with me there to help them when they get stuck. And they get stuck a LOT. The lessons are improving (slowly!), but they've still got a LONG way to go. I can't imagine anyone is teaching themselves to code anything using CodeCademy that couldn't have done just as well using a tutorial online. Anyone with the natural aptitude to make it through their lessons could teach themselves with damn near anything.

michelleclsun 14y ago
I have the same experience as a student at Hackbright, a 10 week programming course. Prior to hackbright I took a lot of codecademy courses, but it never got me from newbie to 'yes I can do this' programmer. Yes, I can follow the exercise and figure out how to pass each quiz, however, I believe CodeCademy essentially suggests that you have to follow 1 way to do things to be correct, which is not how problem solving (and programming) works. At Hackbright however, I found learning with CodeCademy to refresh some knowledge is helpful, especially with a teacher around to ask questions. Most of the time, the questions confirm that my solution is also valid, but it's just different from the CodeCademy answer.