Developers Corner: Codecademy – The Rosetta Stone Of Programming

developers_corner

Hello and welcome to the Developers Corner. This is a new feature I’ll be testing out on my blog. Since I am doing a lot of coding myself on a daily basis as we’re building Fashion Metric I thought it was time to integrate this deeper in my site. So from PHP to CSS, MySQL to NoSQL, I’ll be adding these topics in the Developers Corner.

We all know Rosetta Stone, how could you not, they are just about everywhere. In the airport, the mall, on TV, and on a website you’re probably going to visit after you finish reading this article, Rosetta Stone has become ubiquitous. The secret to their success? Teaching people how to learn a language by actually letting them practice the language and giving them instant feedback.

Rosetta Stone showed the world this was a great way to learn a spoken/written language and now Codecademy is doing the same thing with programming languages. No, it won’t save you when you need to find a bathroom in Chile, or if you’re trying to order a beer in France, but it will help you achieve your coding dreams. Rather than reading tutorial after tutorial, or watching video after video, Codecademy allows you to code and get realtime feedback while you’re learning a new programming language. Below is a screenshot showing all the different tracks you can take:

Codecademy_tracks

If you’ve never written HTML or CSS before, start with the Web Fundamentals. If you know enough to be dangerous and want to expand your knowledge try jQuery, Javascript, or Python. Ruby is one of the hottest programming languages for rapid prototyping and the Codecademy track is probably one of the quickest ways to learn Ruby.

They recently added APIs track is a good one for anybody who wants to learn how to get their code to work with other platforms and services.  Once you’re in a track you’ll see a window on your right, that’s where you code, on the left is the lesson itself, pretty cool eh?

codecademy_track_coding

So if learning how to program was on your to-do list this year or if you wanted to take your current skills to the next level Codecademy is the slickest solution I’ve seen, well, ever. And no, I’m not being paid by Codecademy nor do I know anyone there, I just think they rock and if you want to become a rockin’ programmer you might want to check it out.

I hope you like the Developers Corner, please comment below and tell me if you want more segments like this, or if they’re boring and you want them kept to a minimum. Comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton