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When comparing Codecademy vs Lynda, the Slant community recommends Codecademy for most people. In the question“What are the best websites to learn to code?” Codecademy is ranked 7th while Lynda is ranked 13th. The most important reason people chose Codecademy is:
Right from the start, users write code. They start small in an environment that has constant feedback and gradually progress to more complex concepts. Users can see code results instantly, giving great feedback.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Interactivity
Right from the start, users write code. They start small in an environment that has constant feedback and gradually progress to more complex concepts. Users can see code results instantly, giving great feedback.
Pro Excellent progression
Codeacademy doesn't overwhelm beginners with information. It gives bite-sized information, the bare minimum needed to finish a task and get to the next one. As the course progresses, it slowly fills in background information.
Pro Good editor
Codeacademy has a powerful, beginner-friendly integrated development environment (IDE) that can also be used outside of curriculum.
Pro Bite-sized lessons
Each lesson in code-academy focuses on a single concept, and repetition is provided to drill the concept.
Pro Mostly free content & best progression series for beginners
Pro Community forums
It has forums which can be used to discuss with other learners
Pro Quality and quantity
Pro Video tutorials with commentaries
Pro Extensive
There are a lot of different languages to choose from thanks to their large offering of courses (almost 4000 total that cover various subjects).
Pro Build as you learn
Many courses offered on Lynda take a hands-on approach, encouraging you to apply what you learn by building projects.
Pro It's possible to get transcripts of videos
Pro Videos can be watched at 2x speed
If you feel yourself getting bored with the lecture, it's possible to speed it up to get through it quicker.
Cons
Con Not the best structure for quick refreshers
The content of the lessons is aimed very much at people just starting to learn how to code. This is perfect for beginners but if you want to use Codecademy to refresh your knowledge the lessons are not designed to be quickly done.
Con Lack of context
Codecademy is great for providing a hands-on approach, but there is a lack of context regarding how to start a project in real life. While users may learn how to code using Codecademy's interface, they may not have any idea how to code independently.
Con Sticks to pretty basic
Con Deleted a lot of content
A lot of free content has been taken away, for example the PHP course was removed from the site.
Con Buggy
Codecademy is known to have many bugs which interfere with the editor, resulting in error messages despite having the correct answer.
Con Allows infinite loops to run
If you run an infinite loop, the browser freezes. Many other similar websites will give you an error, preventing the loop from running. Though not a bug, the lack of feature to stop infinite loops from running can be quite frustrating to beginners.
Con Lacks a community
With no user forum, there is very little opportunity to engage with other students and discuss the learning material.
Con iOS and Android apps are somewhat poor
Compared to the experience available on the web, the mobile apps are severely lagging behind.
Con More ways to help retain the information would be helpful
More quizzes, tests and assignments to help practice and retain the presented information would be helpful.
