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Codecademy hasn't even been live for 24 hours at the time of writing, but it's already gone viral.
The website provides an easy and fun solution to those looking to learn that Holy Grail of geekdom: coding. Via an interactive interface, users can simply start participating in free simple online lessons on Codecademy -- without any need to sign up or log in.
The startup launched on 18 August, having been in creation for a week and a half. The work of Ryan Bubinski, a recent Columbia University graduate, and Zach Sims, who has just completed his junior year also at Columbia, Codecademy, like many good inventions, is the product of frustation.
Speaking to Wired.co.uk, Sims explains the motivations behind the site. "I've tried a bunch of different times and ways to learn to code and always been upset by how difficult it is. Whether I used books or videos, I never learned as well as I could with something I wanted to learn or was interested in learning about."
It's a familiar problem -- coding is useful but maybe not the most fascinating subject to study. When Bubinski and Sims started building a new project this summer, Sims's patchy coding knowledge resulted in Codecademy, "the start of a learning revolution".
He explains how the pair came up with the user-friendly site: "I thought about the best learning experience I've had, and realised it comes down to motivation and reward systems. The problem with learning things from books and videos is that you're just reading or watching them by yourself, and there's no reward when you've finished." "Often, people learn how to code by starting with a side project and figuring out things as you go along. So that's what we've done with Codecademy. The interactive interface gives the user points for completing exercises and keeps them motivated." Codecademy's reward system comes in the form of badges, which successful pupils can triumphantly share across the web through Twitter and Facebook.
The social aspect is also important, and Codecademy has networking options to allow users to code with their friends, monitor each others' progress and keep those essential motivation levels high.
It's obviously early days for the website, but Codecademy has already generated a lot of interest. When Wired.co.uk spoke to Sims, there were currently thousands of concurrent users on the site (including us). He says, "There have been hundreds of thousands of exercises completed already. We've had people asking to contribute exercises and contact from Malaysia, China and Spain, amongst others requesting to translate the site."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
