Free Online JavaScript Tutorial a Hit, Gets 2.5M Injection
A site offering JavaScript lessons for free just received a 2.5 million investment to expand.
Develop reports that website Codecademy has been injected with $2.5 million USD in Series A round funding provided by Union Square Ventures and other investors to expand its operations to more countries and with more manpower. What's so special about this site? It teaches JavaScript programming from the very basics, and does it for free.
Codecademy launched back in August and drew more than 250,000 visitors in its first four days. It ditches the books and sterile method of teaching my making the lessons actually fun using conversational language and simple tasks. Users aren't even required to set up an account in the first few lessons, but they'll lose their progress after the first few lessons if an account isn't established by then.
The first lesson introduces promising programmers to the command line, asking them to enter their name in quotes, use the .length command and perform simple calculations. The next lesson covers the confirm or deny popup window messages and alerts. Nope, nothing boring so far!
"Codecademy was created out of the frustrations Zach [Sims] and Ryan [Bubinski] felt with learning how to program," reads the site's About Us page. "Tired with less effective text and video resources, Ryan and Zach teamed up to create Codecademy, a better, more interactive way to learn programming by actually coding. This is just the beginning."
Now sitting on a huge mound of cash, Codecademy is currently hiring additional developers and designers.
"You can find more about the openings on our jobs page, but we think there are few opportunities that offer you the chance to make a difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people," reads the Codecademy blog. "We're creating an educational revolution and improving equality of access to education and we want you to be a part of it. If that sounds awesome, send us an email and check out our jobs page."
To star learning how to code in JavaScript for free, head here.
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This is the kind of work that can help the market. They can become huge if they start teaching other programming languages.
wow, im using this right now, its amazing.
I really love this, learning so much so fast
Please do this for C++
wow, im using this right now, its amazing.I really love this, learning so much so fast
"So much knowledge, so fast; it's glorious" oh dear god I've played way too much halo.
Am I the only one who was thinking SQL injection?
the title made me think this was a bait thing to get people to go there and get some kind of virus.
good going for them, heres hopeing they expand to c+
Grats to these guys, definitely going to check it out.
Am I the only one who was thinking SQL injection?
Certainly not.
So, why is all the fuss about this? There have been plenty of sites doing this. One example is w3schools that teaches javascript, html, css, asp.net, php, sql, among many other languages.
As a BA in Computer Science I can tell you that for many people learning to code can be earthier a terrible task or some thing that changes how you view almost every thing in your life if you enjoy it enough , coding can really help with critical thinking and problem solving. And as some one who spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on w3schools between html ,sql , asp and xml I find this site a bit easier to use and learn from.
So, why is all the fuss about this? There have been plenty of sites doing this. One example is w3schools that teaches javascript, html, css, asp.net, php, sql, among many other languages.
I never heard of W3Schools before so I checked it out. It looks nice but I also discovered a site critical of W3Schools. They have many alternative references there.
Pffft, who learns programming by following lessons? Do Hello world, find a reference and start making stuff.
Bah. I started back with k&r, using vi and gcc. Now apparently text books are too difficult to understand.
^ it is much faster to learn with something like Codecademy (though it's not very large atm) than with a textbook.
Textbooks have their benefits but they're boring and slow paced. Why not learn the same stuff, just as thoroughly, quicker and easier?
I checked it out when it came out, pretty cool but it didn't have much yet.
There are some similar projects for a few other languages like Ruby.
I call for a similar tutorial site for C#, Java and Perl!
I honestly came here thinking this was about some website teaching people SQL injection and somebody got 2.5m hits from it...
nice to hear something good for once.
Wow, this is actually quite useful. I'm learning Java right now and thought that JavaScript would be close to it, but apparently there're some differences, and this site might help to find out about them.
@amk-aka-phanton Javascript has nothing to do with Java, blame Microsoft.
Really nice, helpfull Tutorial, it was so easy to learn from it.
http://www.echofreelance.com/