I’m glad you’re learning to code. In fact, I was in the same position a few years ago. Since then, I’ve tried everything - books, college classes, videos and more. For me, and for hundreds of people we’ve talked to, none of these traditional approaches, though useful for learning history or literature, helped it ‘click’ for us in learning to program. My cofounder, Ryan, has spent the past couple of years helping developers at Columbia learn how to apply their theoretical computer science skills to actually programming. He’s taught hundreds of Columbia students the basics (and beyond).
Before I start, I just want to point out that Codecademy is new. We started working on the project in the middle of August and released it a few weeks later. The money we raised is not just a show of support for what we have - it’s a sign that people are excited about the future.
I’ve been very upfront with everyone we’ve spoken to so far about what you can learn on Codecademy. At the moment, the “Getting Started with Programming” course is indeed very basic. It’s meant to show people that programming can be fun. As you said, you won’t come out of one course as an awesome developer (as I can sadly attest). Then again, you won’t come out of a freshman computer science course with the ability to be an awesome developer. It’s a long road, and that’s why developers are a hot commodity nowadays.
We only have three courses up right now. We’re working on hundreds more in other languages and at various skill levels. While you can’t learn the full stack from Codecademy now, you will be able to shortly.
Lastly, our experience has been that the badges and other aspects are a crucial part of the experience we’re creating on Codecademy for most of our users. If you ask most people what stopped them from reading their entire programming book (and we’ve talked to hundreds of people), it’s almost always that they aren’t motivated enough. In school, learning is motivated by report cards and teacher expectations. We hope we can build a motivational experience that pushes anyone to program - not just the stereotypical developer. We’ve made a conscious effort to reach out to underrepresented demographics who are interested in learning to program. You’ll see the fruits of those efforts in coming months.
Above all, we’re open to feedback as we grow. I just hope you’ll look at what we’re doing as a first attempt - not the final one. Please let me know if you have any other feedback.