Code Academy is a very useful tool for learning coders to start right away with an easy and simple way to learn! With it's easy to follow tutorials and sometimes fun challenges, Code Academy can really teach you another coding language quickly and efficiently! There are many different coding languages you can learn including HTML5 and CSS, Python, JavaScript, Sass, Ruby and even PHP! These are just some of the many different languages Code Academy has to offer. Every time you start to learn a new language, it will start you off with simple to follow tutorials and teach you the basics. Later on, it will challenge you and make you learn more complex things! Not to mention, it's FREE! You can pay for more premium courses, but most of the courses people want to learn are free. If you still are unsure about trying Code Academy after all this information, you should stop reading and try 5 courses in any language. I can give you 99% assurance that you will enjoy it and might even get hooked.
I have listed a bunch of coding languages you can learn using Code Academy, cool, but I haven't yet talked about each of their strengths and weaknesses. So, to help you all choose the best coding language for you, I will be listing some of the strengths and weaknesses of each language. First off, we will be talking about Python, a versatile coding language that is very popular amongst beginners. Some of the major strengths of Python is that it is very easy to start learning without having a huge learning curve waiting for you, and it is also great if you have already learned and perfected another language but want to learn a new one. It is very similar to Lua but has its own things that make it special! Another thing Python does well is how organized you can keep things and how many similarities it has with other languages so if you learn Python, it can help you in the long run! I can only really see one weakness that Python has and that is that it can get complicated at times. If you don't keep everything organized and add notes to yourself, you will often get confused on what happened or what is wrong with your code! This can be easily avoided but for most beginners, it can be a challenge. Overall, Python is a very strong coding language that utilizes many staples of coding introduced from languages before it, while still keeping it simple and powerful!
Next, we will be talking about Ruby! Ruby programming is used in many different places but it is most well known for its usefulness in web applications! It is similar to Python in the sense that it can be used in many different areas and strive. Some things programmed using Ruby are Homebrew, used for doing many things (example: installing software packages), Discourse, a discussion forum/ chat room, Play which allows you and a team to play songs in iTunes collaboratively, and etc...! The unique thing about Ruby and a very big strength of Ruby is that, stated by its creator, it feels more "natural" rather than "simple". I tried Ruby first hand and I can agree with this. When I used Ruby, I didn't really get a feeling of "Wow, this is simple and easy!" but I actual got the feeling of "Wow, it's like this was meant for me!" It feels like you made this and whenever a script is successfully executed, you don't get a sensation of excitement and happiness but rather you get the feeling of "I did that"! One weak thing about Ruby though is that it is hard to find help and the community isn't too strong, so not many people can help you out with it! Although there are plenty of tutorials, for one to one feedback, Ruby isn't the best! At the end of the day, Ruby is a strong programming language that you can use and feel good about.
HTML5 is the most commonly used coding language as it is used in every single website! Any website you go to is made in HTML (even this one) and it is very good. I have completed over 65 percent of courses on Code Academy for HTML5 and CSS, and I have learned a lot! For starters, it is very easy to start off with because of its simple organization and the feature of adding notes, and it is pretty simple to spot an error in a line of code. Those are very big strengths of HTML but another one is that, unlike Ruby, you can find help from many people and learn anything. If you are going to a website and you see something that you want to learn how to code, you right click on that element, choose to inspect element, and then see all of the code and how it is working. You can even edit it (but it will only show up on your computer) so you can learn anytime anywhere! I can't really list any weaknesses of HTML because it is such a strong and versatile coding language, that anyone can learn using the power of Code Academy!
JavaScript is another very popular coding language and is commonly for many educational websites. The reason is that you input code into it and it puts the output as an "answer" to that code (like if you put in 3+4, the output would be 7). This is the biggest strong point of JavaScript and it is very good for doing things like storing information, like your name or a grocery list, and you can easily refer back to it. JavaScript is one of the best for beginning to learn to code, but it won't help you learn any other languages in the future because it doesn't share a lot of similarities with other coding languages and it feels more "robotic" and "professional" than most other languages, which is a downside. JavaScript, at its core, is a "good" coding language, which means it's not complex and super amazing but it is not bad and terrible. It is strong, but in my opinion, not as good as other languages but it does have it's strong points!
Sass is an "add on" or "extension" to CSS and improves upon almost all aspects of CSS styling! It can turn a mildly awesome stylesheet into a supremely awesome, cool and edgy stylesheet! You have to see images of the difference yourself to really grasp this so go check out this to see what was made using Sass to improve it: http://sass-lang.com/. That is the official Sass website and you can see how awesome it looks. Even its NAME is awesome because it stands for Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets and it stands by its name! Anyone can get excited over Sass and it's amazing capabilities and its big strength is that it can make anything, like a basic, blue square, awesome and amazing! I don't see many weaknesses but one might be how forgotten and not very used it is because not many people know that it even exists! That could be a downside on trying to learn it but overall, it is amazing and needs to be noticed for its awesomeness!
On Code Academy, I have gone through over 65 percent of learning HTML5 and CSS and I have gotten hooked! I have learned a lot and I can now code a basic website that looks nice and functions perfectly!
My journey on learning this was pretty spectacular and spanned out in over 1 month. On the first day I started learning, all I could do was put in text and headings with no actual form or laying but I was a complete machine on day three and four! I learned how to add images, organize my headings and paragraphs and add links. I even learned a little bit of CSS but not too much. By the time I was done my first week, I had a pretty ok but bland website and then they started teaching me CSS! Over the first two weeks, I learned how to colour different things like text, shapes, different elements and more! On the final week, I learned how to make a custom stylesheet of my own and make may other things with the power of HTML and CSS! Learning all of this was amazing and easy because of Code Academy and it is one of the best tools for new coders.
Credits:
Created with images by joffi - "hacking hacker computer" • kev-shine - "keybaord"