[millerfung]

Has anyone done codecademy before or any other free online programming course and how does this Udactiy compares to those? What would you suggest for a total beginner, start off with Udacity? Or together with other courses to replace each other's weaknesses?

Is Udacity specialize for teaching programming? Or like MitX where they are just free online education providers?

[bira]

Start with Udacity, it's university-grade material thought by college professors and/or highly experienced professionals while Codecademy (at the moment) is more like an interactive tutorial that walk you through how to do simple, practical stuff like building an html work, how to use CSSs etc.

You can benefit from both, depending on what you want to build and at what stage of your project you are in.

I would start with Udacity, but be advised it's going to be no cakewalk.

I have no deep experience with MitX (nor Coursera) though I checked them out briefly and they seem to provide insane quality considering they come with no price tags.

[cwe]

I got into some of the basic codecademy javascript class, and did enjoy it, and also complete CS101 and CS253 in Udacity. That's in Python, so the comparison may not work all that well, but with the videos, homeworks, and forums, I learned a whole lot more from Udacity. As a beginner, I would recommend CS101. Right now Udacity is mostly programming, but in the article they mention a few new classes starting up soon in Math and Physics. Eventually they hope to branch out further and teach everything.