Hooked on Codecademy

So, while beginning to work through the Rails tutorial I realized that it would be of benefit to me to learn some programming languages from the ground up. I've always been able to work through most types of code by guessing, checking, and googling; but, I figured that building up my programming knowledge from the ground up (i.e. via some online course) might be more a tenable path for building up the requisite skills for my project than my usual ad-hoc method of learning through experimentation with discrete functions.

So, what started off as as some casual online refresher courses turned into a sort of Codecademy addiction. There really is something to the "gamey" aspect of the site which involves earning points for each completed activity and badges for achieving various landmarks such as completing a section of earning a certain number of points (or, as I recently discovered, earning a certain number of points in a day). I have found myself vying to stay focused and awake long enough to earn just one more badge before finally passing out for the night.*

Proof of my Codecademy achievements as of 10 minutes ago (I've earned two more points since I started this blog post and took this screenshot).

*note to self: "gameyness" in education works.