This week, I’ve started using a new website called Codecademy to learn how to program. More than 245,000 people have pledged to learn to code in 2012 and I’m one of them. The website lets you progress through lessons at your own speed, which immediately makes it better than taking a physical class and also, it’s free!


So far, I’ve done the very basic Javascript lessons, which haven’t been too taxing. Hopefully when I’ve progressed through all the Javascript lessons, I’ll be able to put the lessons to use and add more functionality to my websites (such as this one). I’m not sure how many courses there are but so far, I’ve unlocked 3 of them.

From what I’ve seen, the website itself is coded brilliantly, allowing you to try out what you’ve learned on the page, without the need to use your own programs. It even has a section called labs, which allows you to practice coding without the need to download a code editor or IDE.

Codecademy has received some great publicity from well known sites such as Wired, TechCrunch, Mashable and LifeHacker. A couple of days ago, even the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg said he was going to take the course.

From what I’ve seen and used, Codecademy seems to be a great way of learning to code and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn to code.