Linked by Howard Fosdick on Fri 13th Apr 2012 20:21 UTC
Six-month-old web site Codecademy claims you can learn programming through its online tutorials. The free modules on JavaScript are now available. The site also allows anyone to post their own programming courses. The site has good funding, but question is: can you really learn programming this way? One blogger enthuses that Codecademy's approach "looks like the future of learning to me," while another slams it saying "Seriously? Wow, bull**** badging and sh**ty pedagogy wins the day in ed-tech investing." What do you think?
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RE[4]: I think it depends on the person
by tuma324 on Sat 14th Apr 2012 05:48
in reply to "RE[3]: I think it depends on the person"
Member since:2010-04-09
"I mod'ed him down because he assumes that having a formal education makes you *better* than not having one.
He's entitled to that opinion. Feel free to argue against it.
How many times I have seen CS graduates moving to Finance because they didn't learned enough of their craft in the class room?
How many times I have seen self-thought programmers f--k up incredibly due lack of understanding of basic principles of program design? A lot. Does that prove anything? Maybe, maybe not. "
And why would you generalize?
There are many resources out there about program design and data structures, I think it's up to the developer to educate himself, it's the developer's responsibility.
Just because some self-taught programmer screwed something doesn't mean that all of them are equally as bad. The same can be said about CS people, it's all relative. Mistakes also happens a lot in software development, the good thing is we can fix the mistakes, learn from them and move on.
Do you know Miguel de Icaza? The creator of GNOME and Mono, he is a self-taught programmer and doesn't have a CS degree. Yet he proved to be very successful with his projects.
Edited 2012-04-14 06:05 UTC
RE[5]: I think it depends on the person
by l3v1 on Sat 14th Apr 2012 07:24
in reply to "RE[4]: I think it depends on the person"
Member since:2005-07-06
Do you know Miguel de Icaza? The creator of GNOME and Mono, he is a self-taught programmer and doesn't have a CS degree
It's never about the degree. It's about having the required background knowledge to actually really understand what you're doing, and not just think you're a programmer guru just because you can complete some online coder page. One way of gathering at least some parts of that knowledge is by getting a relevant degree, yes, but not the only way, I can understand that. Still, we all can already well see the results of making everyone and their neighbors believe they can be programmers in a fortnight.
RE[5]: I think it depends on the person
by Soulbender on Sat 14th Apr 2012 10:41
in reply to "RE[4]: I think it depends on the person"
Member since:2005-08-18
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Member since:
2005-08-18
He's entitled to that opinion. Feel free to argue against it.
How many times I have seen self-thought programmers f--k up incredibly due lack of understanding of basic principles of program design? A lot. Does that prove anything? Maybe, maybe not.
Edited 2012-04-14 05:29 UTC