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Add to SafariWhen comparing Professional JavaScript for Web Developers, 3rd Edition vs Codecademy, the Slant community recommends Codecademy for most people. In the question“What are the best resources to learn JavaScript?” Codecademy is ranked 2nd while Professional JavaScript for Web Developers, 3rd Edition is ranked 17th. 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 Best book to learn Javascript
Without any hesitation, this is the best book on Javascript with clear-cut and in-depth explanation and coverage. It will make you a top-notch JavaScript developer if you use it properly. Just be patient and you will end up with total understanding. Then you will find yourself as a js programmer. Covers everything that you might need to know about JavaScript.
Pro Explains what makes JS confusing and how to go about it
JS can be a confusing language especially for people coming in from other C-based languages. It often provides difficulty writing good code that uses objects and methods. The book explains why that is and how to think about the language to avoid confusion.
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
Cons
Con Material can be too dense for some
This is not a good starting place for those who can't absorb dense material. It evolves from basic to advanced concepts, but you have to want to stick with it and pay attention.
Con The book requires knowledge of general programming concepts
If your programming experience is currently limited to only HTML and CSS, this book will likely be too advanced to follow. It's great for someone with programming experience in another language who's looking to learn JavaScript. Beginners will have to be willing to simultaneously pick up general programming concepts (like data types, variables).
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.
