It’s not every day you see a tutorial set that really makes you smile, but Codeyear’s attempt to teach people Javascript through weekly courses and projects is admirable, especially given the quality of the site, the clarity of the courses, and the potential for knowledgeable programmers to start writing similar courses for other languages, such as Python.

To top it all off, they’re using a badge and points system to encourage people to complete new courses, which is a great way to motivate people to finish what they’re learning and move on to something new. In addition, it also means that as they see their projects come to life, they can show people how far they’ve progressed and encourage a little online competition – which, if you’re a partycasino.com fan, is never a bad thing.

So what are the benefits of learning Javascript? Well, I’m sure there’s an entire series of books involved in giving a long answer, but in short:

1) It’s an introduction to programming. You’re going to learn how to build working functions and variables from scratch, and how the logical thought processes of a programmer can help with the construction of code.

2) The ability to build things. You’ll be able to create functions that calculate answers based on multiple variables, ask people to enter passwords, and improve sites and build plugins as your knowledge grows and your skills improve.

3) Improving your problem solving skills. You’ll scratch your head in confusion a fair few times, but analysing bad code and fixing it is going to require a lot of mental deconstruction and solution brainstorming, and that’ll come in handy outside Javascript, whatever line of work you’re in.

Javascript is a really fun language to learn, and Codecademy is making it easier for anyone who’s never really taken a closer look at it, or programming in general, ever before. Get signed up, and go learn some code!