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Comment by tomasien | Hacker News Reader

I learned everything I knew before I got a job as a programmer from Codecademy. I've learned vastly more by actually doing things, but the basis I needed to get started I learned fantastically with CA.

I think it's also gotten way better from when I first started using it. The jQuery lessons are fantasticly useful, and the Python courses go way deeper and are far more useful than the original Javascript courses I first did.

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Now that's a pretty fantastic endorsement! At the time I went through their stuff, none of it was remotely challenging for me and I was still getting crushed in technical interviews. If you learned enough from their site to get hired as a programmer, then they must have changed[1] a ton on the past few months.

I guess the question is if I go through all their material, will that plus my previous experience writing flash games and freelance webdesigning let me land a coding job at an edu and/or gaming place!

[1]That probably explains the down-vote brigade that hit my other comment. I don't think I've ever seen 3 downvotes for a lengthy, constructive comment aimed at helping someone before.

If you did everything on Codecademy right now, it would take you a long time (maybe 1-2 months to really understand it) but you'd be really well set up for any entry level coding job.

But I'm entry-level, keep that in mind. I'm paid in large part to learn. I deliver plenty of billable hours, but it's understood I have a long way to go.

Thanks for the feedback. I've been hearing similar things of late: that early-on, Codecademy didn't really cut it but that now, they've really picked up their game.

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