Computer Science Changelog

Codecademy Team

Check out the recent content updates to the Computer Science Domain. 📝

April 29, 2024 - Two Course Updates

Dear Learners, we have some updates coming to the Learn Java course and the Learn How to Use AI for Coding course, both of which will go live on April 29, 2024.

Updates to Learn Java include updated exercise checkpoints and tests throughout the course, as well as some projects. These changes should not impact completion percentages in your dashboard.

Updates to Learn How to Use AI for Coding include adding our in-platform AI Chat system for learning prompt engineering techniques. These changes should not impact completion percentages in your dashboard.

February 20, 2024

Content Updates

We’ve made some additions to the Learn Git & GitHub course.

The course now has an additional lesson, project, and quiz, and two articles that dive into GitHub Copilot, how it works, and how to effectively implement it in your code. We have also updated screenshots throughout the course to remain consistent with GitHub’s current user interface.

You might see your progress in the course drop because of these new additions.

February 20, 2024

Content Updates

We’ve made some small additions to the Intro to ChatGPT course.

The course now has two additional projects that utilize prompt engineering, as well as an updated portfolio project. We have also combined two quizzes, renamed some content, and added exercises using prompt engineering throughout the course.

You might see your progress in the course drop slightly because of these new additions.

January 11, 2024

Content Updates

We’ve made two additions to the Intro to Generative AI course.

The course now has an additional project that utilizes prompt engineering, as well as an article outlining the differences between AI and generative AI.

You might see your progress in the course drop because of these new additions.

December 21st, 2023

Content Updates

We’ve made a small addition to the Learn Intermediate Java and Learn Intermediate Java: Threading courses.

Each course’s Threading module now has an added article on Virtual Threading, a recent update to the Java language.

You might see your progress in both courses drop slightly because of this new addition.

January 14th, 2022

Content Updates

We’ve made some small updates to the Computer Science Career Path.

We made some organizational changes to the modules about working outside of Codecademy on your own computer. We’ve rearranged that section of the course, and added a new article.

We also significantly overhauled the section on Object-Oriented Programming. We added several new articles and removed a lesson and quiz on inheritance — we ultimately decided that that inheritance content was unnecessary for an introductory course. If you were in the middle of that lesson, we recommend taking the Object-Oriented Programming module in our Intermediate Python course that teaches similar concepts.

Finally, we added a handful of videos at major milestones in the path to highlight the major takeaways of that section of the course.

You might see your progress drop slightly because of the new additions to the career path.

January 5, 2022

Content Updates

Our Learn Git course is being expanded to a Learn Git & GitHub course!

The new content will still cover how Git is used in a local development environment. But, we’ll also cover how to use Git with GitHub to take advantage of a whole host of features that allow you to collaborate in teams and interact with the developer community across the world. The new releases include more tutorials and projects you can complete using your GitHub account. This was a three-month effort by the Curriculum Team to create much-needed, up-to-date content on GitHub, which is among the most used developer tools.

How Does This Impact You?

If you’re currently working on the Learn Git course, you will see your total completion percentage drop just a little bit. All of your hard work is still relevant!

August 27th, 2021

Content Updates

Our fourth and fifth courses in the Computer Science Path have been released, CS104: Computer Architecture and CS105: Discrete Math! These courses aim to cover the main topics introduced in most equivalent college-level courses. There are essentially no prerequisites for these courses beyond a knowledge of basic Python. These course releases include many new lessons, quizzes, articles, projects, and our new content type, problem sets, to guide your learning. These releases mark the culmination of a nine-month effort by the Curriculum Team at Codecademy to create a robust CS Career Path modeled after the Computer Science undergraduate experience.

How Does This Impact You?

If you’re currently working in the Computer Science path, you will see your total completion percentage drop. While we know this may be discouraging, it is only because we have added more material — all of your hard work is still relevant!

July 20th, 2021

Content Updates

Exciting news! Today we are releasing our brand new Learn Intermediate Python 3 course! This course release includes 11 lessons, with quizzes, projects, and articles to supplement those lessons.

How Does This Impact You?

If you’re currently working or have worked in Learn Python 3, you may notice we have pulled a few content items out of the course.

In particular, the “Function Arguments” module has been removed and rewritten! You can now find this module in the new intermediate-level course. We have also removed the “Inheritance and Polymorphism” lesson from the classes module in favor of a brand new Object-Oriented Programming module.

July 19th, 2021

Content Updates

Our third course in the Computer Science path has been released! CS103: Databases is a comprehensive introduction to Relational Database Management Systems. This course aims to cover the main topics introduced in most college-level Database courses. There are essentially no pre-requisites for this course. Even though the first two Computer Science path courses were in Python, you don’t need to know any Python to get started with databases. This course release includes 14 lessons, with quizzes, projects, and articles to supplement those lessons.

CS103 should keep you busy for a while, but we’ve got more Computer Science coming to you soon! Our final two Computer Science courses are currently in development:

The first part of Computer Architecture is currently in our beta catalog if you want to get a sneak peek of that course. Computer Architecture should be completed in early August.
Our final Computer Science course is Discrete Math. We’re really excited for this one — it will be a slight change in format. It is much less focused on programming and instead focused on the math that supports programming. We’re aiming to complete this course by the end of August.

How Does This Impact You?

May 7th, 2021

Updates to the Computer Science Career Path

Exciting news! We are updating our Computer Science path with a revamped course on data structures and algorithms.

Computer Science Path Release Dates:

Take a look below to get an overview of the CS Path syllabus updates.

Past Changes:

CS101: Introduction to Programming - March, 2021

Current Changes:

CS102: Data Structures & Algorithms - launching May, 2021

Upcoming Changes:

Discrete Math - Q3 2021

Databases - Q3 2021

Computer Architecture - Q3 2021

What’s getting changed?

We’re revamping our CS102 Data Structures and Algorithms course. This update includes brand new lessons, projects, and quizzes as well as a new portfolio project. We’re hoping these additions provide a more well-rounded understanding of a fundamental topic, data structures and algorithms.

At the backbone of every program or piece of software are two entities: data and algorithms. Algorithms transform data into something a program can effectively use. Therefore, it is important to understand how to structure data so algorithms can maintain, utilize, and iterate through data quickly.

What to Expect

Let’s take a look at the new syllabus!

Nodes
Linked Lists
Doubly Linked Lists
Queues
Stacks
Hash Maps
Recursion
Asymptotic Notation
Pattern Searching*
Sorting Algorithms
Brute Force Algorithms*
Trees
Tree Traversal*
Divide and Conquer Algorithms*
Heaps and Heapsort*
Graphs and Graph Search
Path Finding Graph Algorithms*
Dynamic Programming*
Recommendation System Portfolio Project*

New Content

How does this impact you?

If you’ve already started or completed the Computer Science Path, you will see some new content added to the Path and changes to the syllabus.

You won’t lose progress on the coursework that you’ve already completed; however, you may notice that your overall progress percentage has decreased, as there is a greater amount of content included in the improved Path.

Recap

On May 7th, 2021, we’re updating the Computer Science career path to include a new curriculum on data structures and algorithms. Over the next few months we will continue to update our path with brand new courses to help you start your career in computer science!

March 15th, 2021

QA’ed and updated content in every module in the CS101: Introduction to Programming track within the Computer Science Path, as well as Learn Python 3.

🆕 Added feature: Career Path Groups
🆕 Added module: Course Overview
🆕 Added portfolio project: Python Terminal Program
🆕 Added article: Python Scope
🆕 Added article: Combining Lists: The Zip Function
🏗 Rewrote module: Lists
🏗 Rewrote module: Loops
🏗 Rewrote module: Functions
🏗 Moved modules around for an easier ramp-up.
🏗 Moved Code Challenges to its own module.
🐛 Fixed recent bug reports