Codecademy

On January 1, we proclaimed 2012 "Code Year." Our aim was to make programming mainstream in 2012. We thought that not everyone needed to be a programmer, but everyone needed to understand what programming was. Code Year launched and more than 450,000 people joined us on the journey, making their own New Years Resolution to learn to code.

Code Year brought amazing awareness to the importance of programming literacy. NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined in, helping to turn his city into one of the most fertile for startups by pledging to learn to code. Weeks later, The White House realized the same thing and helped us champion a program to teach children to program. Schools everywhere contemplated including coding in their core curriculums, and politicians started the crusade to make more engineers in America.

WHERE TO?

We've seen tremendous success stories come out of Code Year and we've collected them for you to check out. These four stories are merely a small sampling of what's come out of Code Year, and there are stories all over the web. Ryan Hanna, who knew nearly no programming before seeing Codecademy and Code Year, launched his company Sworkit and has seen more than 100,000 downloads. Joah and Haley, meanwhile, learned bits of code on Codecademy and then created their own course to share with others. We think they embody true success on Codecademy - learning, building, and sharing back with the community.

At the same time, while we've seen tremendous success, all of us at Codecademy have spoken to the thousands of people who have let our emails languish unread in their inboxes. Kevin Roose of New York Magazine wrote a great apology to Codecademy last week and we understand where he's coming from. Making a commitment over a year and keeping it is notoriously difficult. We judge Code Year's success not just by the finishers but by the people who now are simply more interested and more aware of programming and the community that surrounds it.

SO, WHAT NEXT?

We're here to help. In 2012, we pulled together an excellent yearlong curriculum that spanned JavaScript, HTML/CSS, jQuery, and Python. This year, we want people to do more than learn to code, we want them to use their code to build something. Learning is the first step, but creating is the next (and maybe more important) step.

Sticking to your resolutions is hard. That's why, in 2013, we've done everything possible to make sure you'll come out a capable coder:

1. Pick a project and build it - in 2012 people could "learn to code." That's a hard goal to achieve. In 2013, you'll build a project and you'll do it almost immediately. Build a website or build a game and learn the basics of code in the process.
2. Timing - consistency is hard to achieve and starting small is the key. In 2012, people got emails every week. In 2013, you'll start small by achieving your goal in less than a month! Where you go from there is up to you.
3. Pencil the time in - are you always "too busy" to finish your resolutions? Start off by putting the time in your calendar.
4. Measure progress - we'll show you what people who stick with it can achieve. Track your own progress with our profiles and stick with it!

It's easier than ever to start now. Programming is empowering and we're proud to have helped thousands of people learn to code. In 2012, Code Year students built mobile apps with hundreds of thousands of downloads, taught thousands of people, and got better at their own jobs. It's 2013 - what will you accomplish with code?

JOIN THE MOVEMENT

Code Year is about more than learning - it's about creating. In 2013, let's make a community of creators, teachers, and students, all united by the power of programming.

Aprender con Codecademy ahora es más fácil para millones de personas.

Aprender a programar es difícil; ¡aprender en un idioma extranjero es aun más difícil! Ya no tendrás que preocuparte por el idioma: usuarios como tú nos están ayudando a traducir Codecademy al español, y nuestro primer curso, HTML/CSS, ya esta listo. Pruébalo y dinos tu opinión, esperamos tener muchos más cursos listos muy pronto.

¡Disfrútalo!

Learning on Codecademy just got easier for millions of people.

Learning to code is hard; learning to code in a foreign language is even harder. That's why we've been working with users to translate our courses into their native language.

Have friends that speak Latin American Spanish? Now they too can learn the basics with our newly translated HTML/CSS track. You may just make their day.

Check it out!

Psst... Want to help translate? Let us know.

Just yesterday we released our latest project to the world: Code Cards! Now you can code your own holiday greeting with HTML, CSS, and just a touch of inspiration.

We wanted to showcase our five favorite cards, from a talking Spock to a bouncing Merry Christmas — check them out!

A moving CSS3mas!

A neon pink holiday

A bouncing Feliz Navidad

Happy minimalistic holidays!

Spock says "Logical Holiday" in Hungarian

Didn't make one? No worries, there's still time before New Year's. Enjoy!

Last week we celebrated a very special holiday for one of our Codecademists — Finnish Independence Day, or as we affectionately call it, “Findependence Day.”

Finland has given us many things in the land of technology, including the mobile communications company Nokia and the creator of operating system Linux, Linus Torvald — not to mention Santa Claus himself!

But most importantly, it gave us our lovely community manager, Linda! To thank the country for its kind gift we turned a wall into its giant flag and celebrated with specially-handcrafted cupcakes, courtesy of our interaction designer.

Happy Findependence Day, everyone!

Learning the basics of a programming language—its syntax, design, and features—is necessary to be able to write programs. Once you know the basics, though, you want to put your new knowledge to work to build something!

In order to provide more concrete things for you to build, we're rolling out Codecademy Projects. The courses in this track come in two types: basic and advanced.

The basic projects will walk you through a step-by-step process to make something of your very own, whether it's a CSS-styled button, a web form, or a JavaScript drawing. The advanced projects are free-form (there's no correctness test!) and allow you to put your knowledge to work to create more complex web applications like a video game or an online store. They include links to helpful courses, tutorials, and documentation to help get you going, and when you've finished, you'll get a link you can use to share your creation on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook!

While the advanced projects rely on the products you'll build in the basic projects and the basic projects rely on the knowledge you'll gain in the tracks, you don't need to do all the basic projects or advanced projects in order. As long as you're familiar with the prerequisites a project mentions, you're good to go!

As we develop more advanced and engaging projects for you, we'll continue to improve the Codecademy learning environment. We're confident you'll love all the new ideas and features we have in store.

Start your first project!

One of the most wished features in the community has been the ability to share your accomplishments with your friends on Facebook. Now it is possible.

Post your badges to a gallery on your Facebook timeline - just remember to set your account to public. And don't worry, you can change your sharing preferences at any time under account settings.

Just over a year ago, Codecademy started with a single JavaScript course. Since then, we've built out the JavaScript language track and added curricula for HTML/CSS, the jQuery library, Python, and Ruby.

As we've developed these courses, we've listened carefully to your feedback and worked to ensure the best possible learning experience for you. To that end, we're unveiling three refurbished Codecademy tracks for the web (HTML and CSS), the jQuery library, and JavaScript.

These new tracks are now available on the main tracks page. If you've been working through the original courses, never fear! Your progress is safe and sound, and you can access it by clicking on the "Me" icon in the upper right of the page and selecting "View my profile."

Whether you've been advancing through the original tracks or are looking for a new language to tackle, go ahead and try out our brand-new courses. We're sure you'll enjoy them!

We've spent a lot of time working on ways to reach out not only to individual students, but also to educators who can help groups of students learn. To that end, we've created things like our after school kits. Today, we're pleased to announce our newest partnership with Computer Science teachers in Wales.

Codecademy Cymru—a joint program between Codecademy and the Welsh Computing At School (CAS)—will feature a custom curriculum to help teach computer science in schools across Wales. This collaboration marks another small step in our international expansion. For Welsh teachers interested in joining in, please sign in here.

Today we're pleased to roll out one of your most-requested features: a resizable editor for your code! Now you have all the space you need—just click and drag anywhere along the gray bar at the bottom of the editor to resize it.

Currently, only the height of the editor can be adjusted. This feature is now available on all Codecademy courses, so whether you're writing a long nested list in HTML or a complex Ruby method, you can adjust your view to look at all your code at once.

What are you waiting for? Go check it out!