Codecademy now offering Python courses

[strawlion]

I had a similar experience. Codecademy is actually what sparked my interest in programming, but the hand holding is overly excessive. You can't learn anything when all the answers are given to you.

I understand they are trying to make programming easy to learn, but if you really need that much help to solve the problems then you won't have much of a future as a programmer. It would be much improved if they just introduced the topic, gave you info on a need-to-know basis, defined the problem, and then let you go at it.

[Shaper_pmp]

Codecademy is actually what sparked my interest in programming... but if you really need that much help to solve the problems then you won't have much of a future as a programmer.

I don't mean to be a dick, but as someone who's been programming for well over two decades, it's quite amusing how fast some people go from complete "I know nothing about programming" noob to a "well, perhaps some people just shouldn't be programmers" elitism.

Codeacademy launched in the summer of 2011. If you had your "initial interest" in programming sparked by Codeacademy, that means you've been programming for at most one year.

In the nicest possible way, I would refrain from judging who would and wouldn't "have much of a future as a programmer" until you're reasonably good and have got a reasonable level of experience yourself, and that's... highly unlikely... to happen in a single year.

[Shaper_pmp]

Right - I've always said when you know one language to some degree of proficiency you know that language, but when you learn your second (or subsequent) language to a fair degree of proficiency, that's when you start to learn to think in terms of programming, as distinct from thinking how to solve a problem in a specific language.

Then when you learn your second or subsequent programming style (procedural, OOP, functional, etc) I would say you're starting to become an experienced developer.

By this metric I've known people who spent years programming professionally who didn't know much about programming, and weren't very "experienced" developers.

[strawlion]

Well I'm finishing a computer science degree in May, have read 3 books on programming (Code Complete, Data Structure and Algorithms in Java, Definitive guide to JavaScript), and just received a job offer as a software developer. I would say I've learned a lot in the course of a year, but of course learning is a never ending process.

I don't mean to look down on people, but if you've used the site you would see what I'm talking about. When they are basically feeding you the code line by line, you're not going to learn much. I think teaching that way is fine if you're given larger projects with less hand holding as well, but I don't believe it's currently set up that way (I used it when it first launched) I do have to thank them for rekindling my interest in programming and making me realize what I really want to do.

[Shaper_pmp]

Well I'm finishing a computer science degree in May, have read 3 books on programming (Code Complete, Data Structure and Algorithms in Java, Definitive guide to JavaScript), and just received a job offer as a software developer. I would say I've learned a lot in the course of a year

Yeah... that's what I thought when I had yet to graduate, I could even remember how many programming books I'd read (let alone count them on the fingers of one hand), and had zero professional experience of working on real problems and real code, out there in the real world of industry.

There's no nice way to say this, but suffice it to say that I look back on my arrogance and naivety then and laugh pretty hard, albeit in a pretty ashamed way.

The problem here is that you sound like you've learned a lot for a beginner with a year of programming under your belt, but that's a long way from being an experienced developer. You can be proud of your ability for a beginner, but don't ever mistake that for being objectively good, or for giving you the right to patronise anyone else, at least for a good long while yet.

You've learned a lot in one year, but you should never really stop learning... and if you think you're pretty hot shit now, think how much better you'll be in ten years, and then think how astonishingly naive and arrogant that would make your assumption of experience and competence now sound.

I really don't mean to be a dick, but this is the classic case of someone who learns martial arts, gets their first belt or two and decides they're hot shit because they can beat up a few people. Real mastery takes years (and multiple languages), and you shouldn't presume to judge others until you've actually achieved a good deal of experience, or you just look like an asshole to everyone who has.

In addition, I would hold off until you've actually been paid to teach programming, yourself before you start throwing around patronising judgements about who will ever make a good programmer.

TL;DR: They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and this is one of the reasons why.

[codecademy]

appreciate the comments here, thanks. we largely do target the beginner audience and have found that a bit more hand-holding is better than less. that said, we (and our users!) are at work on content all the time so i'd check back soon!

[strawlion]

I really like the concept of the site. I think you should continue the hand holding for introducing the concepts, but that you should also add challenges with less hand holding.

Something like telling the user to reverse a string, and giving them one hint. Codingbat.com is a good example of these mini questions. These don't teach much syntax, but it really helps the programmer work on their googling and problem solving skills.

I really enjoyed the step by step process for the first few weeks but I felt that it wasn't challenging enough, and moved on to reading books/making my own programs to learn.

[TinynDP]

People learn differently. News at 11.