America has been discussing the lack of females that code for some time, but I've never seen women show more interest in programming than when they discover this site.
They're really onto something and I wish them success!
This is really a fantastic idea. Although there was an article on HN recently about not dropping out, I have to say I feel that computer science is a field that requires no formal education to be successful (economically, and intellectually) in.
Also I find something detrimental about college to the individual, and I'm thinking in a individualistic sense.
Anyways, I'd love to see sites like this pop up, and micro grant programs around them to help encourage individuals to build something great.
Interestingly enough, at North Carolina State University, Computer Science is part of the College of Engineering, and the coursework largely follows the same path as their other engineering programs (complete with the standard E 101 course at the beginning and a senior design project at the end), albeit more theoretically focused than most.
Right. The University of Michigan does the same thing. But there was discussion on the first day about how computers aren't grouped into science or engineering, because the broadness of compsci provides opportunity in both fields.
Vision might be an example of what I'm trying to explain, moving from researching how to get a computer to see, to something that is practically being used for face recognition and license plate recognition. At the same time there is still more research on vision to be done, especially when paired with robotics.
Architects can also focus on design, which reduces the need for a rigorous engineering training. An architect doesn't have to be a construction engineer.
For example, Tadao Ando started as a truck driver and became one of the world's most celebrated architects with no formal training:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadao_Ando
The software world is missing a job title that would approximate the role of a design-oriented architect. There are plenty of software architects, but this is usually a misleading title because they design infrastructure rather than public-facing spaces. The software architect is more like a "software municipal engineer".
Codecademy offers jump right in type of learning, (interactive), while the others seem to have a different style(a lot of video, along with interactivity).
Everyone learns differently so there is the avenue for many.
I thought that initially, but long term it looks better. After all, there are lots of different book publishers in the programming/tech space alone and they're all doing OK. With their potential to reach even larger numbers of people further down the skills ladder, these interactive tuition sites are still at the leading edge of a potential explosion of providers (solely IMHO, of course).
Just playing with it just now. Very cool site, the sign-up is super easy and quick. And you just dive straight into the programming. This more hands-on approach I find better for learning than just watching online videos.
Congrats to them for the round!
Congrats to the team! I've run through the exercises they've posted and I think they're really on to a cool learning format here. I'm excited to see where they go from here.
It's great to see them teach JavaScript. It's a really nice language and lets people do shiny things immediately.
JavaScript doesn't have the barriers to entry that other languages do: it is dynamically typed, already installed and fairly transparently tied into both a UI framework and distribution channel.
I also rather like the interactive approach they take. I learned programming by reading random tutorials and using Notepad, but I think I would have learned faster with something like this.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I have to say that I still can't use the site due to how they handle keyboard events. It breaks with my normal keyboard layout: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3120338
With the risk of sounding naive or out of place - am I the only one surprised at this idea raising $2.5m? Not that the site isn't cool and well done, but I can't figure out how developing and hosting a site like this, say for the next five years, may cost something in that range.
What would they possibly need that kind of money for?
Education is the next big thing. Recent public classes in databases, machine learning and AI from Stanford is proof enough that even the most traditional learning ops are looking at the Khan meme very seriously.
If anything , these guys have raised frugally and probably will be a big hit in approximately 24 months from now.
The difference, though, is that the money that Khan Academy has raised is donations. They're not investors who are seeking a (financial) return on their capital. Education is a tough space for startups trying to make money: http://avichal.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/why-education-startu...
Salman had options to go either way, he chose it to be structured differently due to philosophical reasons. There are other folks who are doing pretty well:
The greatest cost of any startup is going to be hiring and paying good people (and in Code Academy's case, perhaps teachers / education experts as well).
They are also probably raising more in order to weather out any possible drying up of VC in the future.
Have others gone through their second JS course? I thought the first course was great (albeit a bit rigid) - but the second course was really terrible. Most of the "interactivity" was just hitting enter, and reading another blurb about JavaScript.
Codecademy will live or die on the quality of its courses, and it gives me pause to see them publish an iffy course so early on. I hope they raise the editorial bar as they release the additional courses they've teased.
Ya, agreed. The second one was nowhere near as good as the first. Also have been wondering when new courses will come out. I finished the first two in two days (one each day) and was disappointed there weren't any more. It's been about a month since I last used it and there haven't been any new courses added.
This is very exciting for me. I have a communications background, and zero coding experience. (I've tinkered with Wordpress, HTML, and CSS, but nothing anymore hardcore than that). I've started using code academy and it seems great thus far. However, as a non-coder, they do seem to run through a lot of stuff quite quickly - am I supposed to remember everything I learn after I run the code and steps just once?
I tried "2/0" operation in the console. If this is for programmers, I think the result should be "divide by zero", not "infinity". But I think the idea of the startup is good and the UI is catchy.
Thanks for all the comments and votes folks! I agree that Codecademy has a ways to go until they are a really effective way to learn coding, but it's a start. :)
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadThey're really onto something and I wish them success!
Also I find something detrimental about college to the individual, and I'm thinking in a individualistic sense.
Anyways, I'd love to see sites like this pop up, and micro grant programs around them to help encourage individuals to build something great.
It's one thing to learn how to lay bricks, but another to learn how to architect a skyscraper.
Vision might be an example of what I'm trying to explain, moving from researching how to get a computer to see, to something that is practically being used for face recognition and license plate recognition. At the same time there is still more research on vision to be done, especially when paired with robotics.
For example, Tadao Ando started as a truck driver and became one of the world's most celebrated architects with no formal training: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadao_Ando
The software world is missing a job title that would approximate the role of a design-oriented architect. There are plenty of software architects, but this is usually a misleading title because they design infrastructure rather than public-facing spaces. The software architect is more like a "software municipal engineer".
codecademy.com, codeschool.com, teamtreehouse.com, lynda.com, et. al.
Codecademy offers jump right in type of learning, (interactive), while the others seem to have a different style(a lot of video, along with interactivity).
Everyone learns differently so there is the avenue for many.
Congrats to Codecademy!
JavaScript doesn't have the barriers to entry that other languages do: it is dynamically typed, already installed and fairly transparently tied into both a UI framework and distribution channel.
I also rather like the interactive approach they take. I learned programming by reading random tutorials and using Notepad, but I think I would have learned faster with something like this.
What would they possibly need that kind of money for?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy#History
Education is the next big thing. Recent public classes in databases, machine learning and AI from Stanford is proof enough that even the most traditional learning ops are looking at the Khan meme very seriously.
If anything , these guys have raised frugally and probably will be a big hit in approximately 24 months from now.
But you can find millions of posts that teach you programming, from way down to the high mountains of programming.
http://www.vccircle.com/500/news/niit-sells-element-k-corp-t...
The greatest cost of any startup is going to be hiring and paying good people (and in Code Academy's case, perhaps teachers / education experts as well).
They are also probably raising more in order to weather out any possible drying up of VC in the future.
Codecademy will live or die on the quality of its courses, and it gives me pause to see them publish an iffy course so early on. I hope they raise the editorial bar as they release the additional courses they've teased.
Hopefully they're testing out different types of lessons on different people and gauging proper metrics.