If you’ve ever thought about learning computer programming, now might be a good time to start. The developers of Codecademy invite you to make a New Year’s resolution to learn coding through their interactive programming lessons, emailed to you each week. So far, over 117,000 have signed up.

Their program, called Code Year, is a straightforward, fairly easy to follow three-part course for learning JavaScript, and two separate Codecademy Labs for the object-oriented language, Ruby, and Python. You can complete the lessons in the site’s online text editor, and work at your own pace. The lessons are designed for beginners and those experienced with coding in other languages. And Codecademy says their labs are actually “designed to create your own programs and share them on Twitter and Facebook, and show your friends what you have learned.”

As you complete tutorials, you are awarded points and badges designed to show off and track your progress. Learning code is like learning any language – it takes practice and concentration. Coding will enable you to build intricate websites, online or computer games, and mobile apps.

The Codecademy doesn’t yet include an online forum for students to troubleshoot lessons, but you can share your progress with friends, on Facebook and Twitter. The difficult part in learning say JavaScript is making sure you’re using the proper syntax, like surrounding declared names with quotation marks.

As writer Douglas Rushkoff contends, “If we don’t learn to program, we risk being programmed ourselves…program or be programmed.

Source: Techcrunch
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