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This seems pretty incredible that CodeCombat has already reached the point where they're placing people into jobs. It's supposed to be Codecademy's goal [1] to do that eventually but they've been around much longer.

1. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/codecademy-offers-f...

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There's a pretty big difference in audience in these two examples. Codecademy is targeting people who have no, or nearly no, experience programming and trying to turn them into programmers. CodeCombat's normal stuff appears to be in the same vein, but this specific challenge is something only a fairly experienced programmer is likely to solve. It's easy to place great programmers. Not so easy to take someone, make them a good programmer, and then get them a job.

We are doing it in a way that won't scale: George is just going to hustle to make the placements. Codecademy might have a different problem to solve, too: the players we're placing through this level are mostly people with existing skills who like a fun challenge, not players who have gotten there from scratch through the site's content (like all Codecademy users). It'll be a while before we have enough content to take raw beginners to the required skill levels.

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