I wish HN users would submit the actual content, rather than having to click through Mashable or TechCrunch. I'm not going to enrich them by clicking on their ads, anyway. Just point to the original content, thank you very much.
Frustratingly, Mashable doesn't directly link to Codecademy. It instead points the hyperlinked name to another page on its site, and obscures the relevant URL behind what you might naturally consider to be another Mashable page.
They should try showing less contempt for their readers.
Nah, not really. You can consider the term “programming language” to refer only to those languages capable of computation, but then you’d have to include LaTeX and CSS3, because they’re both Turing-complete. Where do you draw the line?
Probably the most reasonable way to cut it up is to treat programming, markup, and styling languages as subsets of computer languages. They all overlap to varying degrees, and Turing-completeness is entirely separate—Magic: The Gathering is Turing-complete, and nobody is calling that a computer language of any kind.
You'd have to be very green to find w3schools to be any use, and even still, it would you bad advice too often.
Speaking as someone who develops html and css professionally (among other things), no they aren't programming languages. To call them as such would suggest some sort of logic, which unfortunately isn't present.
It takes maybe two years using them professionally most of your working days to become an expert. Everything after that is monotonous, repetetive drudgery.
Html5 is a disorganised mess and the wonderful css3 is vendor-prefix hell. I know a lot more of both of these languages than a sane person would want to, and I need a new job. The DOM is a handicap. The front-end of the web is broken.
Codeacademy is really good, it's helped me brush up on my Javascript for one thing.
But as for creating and contributing content, their terms [1] are a bit draconian. They specify complete ownership of anything you contribute to the site, and aside from your right to delete your contributions, it appears that there's no way to export content.
I'm no lawyer, perhaps someone here is: do their terms prohibit reusing my own contributions in another venue?
I'm not a lawyer either, but as I read it the rights are similar to many other User submitted content sites. They aren't required to make it easy for you to get your content off their site, and any content you leave on the site they have a free license to use on the site. However they do not claim ownership of code you may have written when used/hosted elsewhere. I find it difficult to believe that anything you write on there would be something that would take you more than 15 minutes to recreate in a local editor... but that may just be me.
Thanks for your comments, indubitably. I'm the cofounder of Codecademy. I'd love to hear your concerns - shoot us an email at contact (at) codecademy (dot) com and we'll discuss terms.
[+] [-] wyclif|14 years ago|reply
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3789022
[+] [-] FuzzyDunlop|14 years ago|reply
They should try showing less contempt for their readers.
[+] [-] bicknergseng|14 years ago|reply
Other than that, great to see a potential replacement for W3Schools.
[+] [-] evincarofautumn|14 years ago|reply
Probably the most reasonable way to cut it up is to treat programming, markup, and styling languages as subsets of computer languages. They all overlap to varying degrees, and Turing-completeness is entirely separate—Magic: The Gathering is Turing-complete, and nobody is calling that a computer language of any kind.
[+] [-] Davertron|14 years ago|reply
"New programmers typically learn how to use them before any other programming languages..."
[+] [-] puppybeard|14 years ago|reply
https://developer.mozilla.org/
You'd have to be very green to find w3schools to be any use, and even still, it would you bad advice too often.
Speaking as someone who develops html and css professionally (among other things), no they aren't programming languages. To call them as such would suggest some sort of logic, which unfortunately isn't present.
It takes maybe two years using them professionally most of your working days to become an expert. Everything after that is monotonous, repetetive drudgery.
Html5 is a disorganised mess and the wonderful css3 is vendor-prefix hell. I know a lot more of both of these languages than a sane person would want to, and I need a new job. The DOM is a handicap. The front-end of the web is broken.
[+] [-] scelerat|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amasad|14 years ago|reply
http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4222
[+] [-] mdanger|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godDLL|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] indubitably|14 years ago|reply
But as for creating and contributing content, their terms [1] are a bit draconian. They specify complete ownership of anything you contribute to the site, and aside from your right to delete your contributions, it appears that there's no way to export content.
I'm no lawyer, perhaps someone here is: do their terms prohibit reusing my own contributions in another venue?
[1] http://www.codecademy.com/terms
[+] [-] EwanG|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zds|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benatkin|14 years ago|reply
I took a quick look at the Codecademy one and it seems a bit dry. I think they should pick something other than Codecademy to talk about. http://www.codecademy.com/courses/week-3-html-project/0#!/ex...
[+] [-] wyck|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nextstep|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amasad|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vaksel|14 years ago|reply
I remember when they launched people submitted a ton of content...and in all this time, all they came out with is the most basic of languages