lost and found : Tempted to give up on #codeyear

Tempted to give up on #codeyear

I spotted the hashtag #codeyear in my twitter feed sometime before Christmas, and my interest was piqued… I checked out the Codecademy website, and signed up for the free e-learning program that will run throughout 2012. I had no real idea of what the course would entail, nor how I’d use it. However I live with computer science geeks, and I work with lots of their ilk, so I figured a little more understanding of the kind of thing they do wouldn’t do any harm.

I spent last Sunday working on the week one lessons, and finishing all 8 of them. It took me a while, and I was very grateful to some kind librarians on Twitter (tweeting with the hashtag #libcodeyear) who helped me with the last few exercises. I found it hard. I also found it frustrating. There seemed to be so little context to the learning that in the end all I was doing was following instructions. A week on, I found I hadn’t retained much from that first week (except that starting a line with // makes that line a comment, rather than executable code). I couldn’t see the point of it, nor where it was taking me.

Week 2 was less arduous - which was good as my heart wasn’t really in it. At the end of it, I discovered there are some ‘projects’ at the end - I failed to spot last week’s (called FizzBuzz). I had a go at it just now, and proved that I really don’t remember much of week 1. Frustrating. It also turns out I don’t remember much of week 2 either… even though I only just finished it.

The thing is… despite saying I thought it’d be a good thing to do, I’m not really sure what I am doing Codecademy for. I have no real need to learn Javascript. I can’t think of a scenario at work where I could use it, especially as I work with coding Gods. It’s like I’ve picked a game where I can never truly compete. I learnt HTML and CSS at library school - and got really sucked in. I liked creating my own website. I may have become ever so slightly obsessed… This time last year I learnt some basic SQL. Again, I got quite sucked in because I was using the skills - which reinforced them, and made them relevant. I’m not convinced Javascript is going to be relevant to me any time soon. As a result, I’m seriously questioning my commitment to the program.

How are the rest of you getting along with it?