Codeacademy is awesome! The industry had to start somewhere and they've done a stellar job, but it could be even simpler. That said, the issue the author appea

Codeacademy is awesome! The industry had to start somewhere and they've done a stellar job, but it could be even simpler. That said, the issue the author appears to be having is specifically the disconnect between the marketing, 'easiest way to code' and the reality. For example, my gf who is a non-coder but has modest computer literacy skills, tried it out for the first time last week (doing the python track). She was going fine until about 10 minutes in and didn't understand some really elementary concept, she spent the next 30 minutes trying to figure it out, got frustrated, and then gave up. A quick win might be to focus on the community aspect more, helping each other, live chat rooms and forums, and explain the UI a bit better. There might even a tutoring revenue model somewhere in there...? Technical people have years of built up mental models that we take for granted. You really have to take someone like your mom and put her on the site, to realize just how complicated it is for the masses.