tiptup
"All options are open to me, and I plan to decide in the next 48 hours."
Another gripe I have is some of them don't even care whether or not you verify the address. I receive receipts and shipping status all the time.
The employer is still responsible in providing suitable office equipments for the home-worker, i.e. office chairs, desks, lighting and computers. If the home-worker is using their personally-owned equipment for work, the employer is still liable in ensuring the equipment is fit for purpose and get it test/certified for electrical items.
It is up to the employer to ensure the home office is at the same health and safety and data protection standards as they would in the office and yes a H&S risk assessment will have to be carried out.
You may also have to purchase public liability insurance if they receive business visitors into their homes as well.
I'm not trying to put a downer to home-working (I do some myself) but few SMEs realise the true implications of offering home-working until they get a letter from the lawyers demanding compensation for their employees' injury from tripping on some cable they placed themselves in their home office whilst working.
It is obvious the users' background covers a wide spectrum so Codecademy would have to draw a line somewhere and say here's the pre-requisites prior to starting the intro coding course. They may need to provide this background knowledge via a pre-sessional/foundation/principles course (or pintpoint users where to go if they don't) covering the barebone basics of computer science and computing as a task.
Whether 'the hard way' is the best is really up to the learner - people learn in different styles so whatever gets their attention really. As a suggestion , Codecademy should provide a list of additional resources for eager learners who wants to understand the underlying concepts and/or provide links to other courses if this particular course is not useful for them.
Adding more expansive instructions should help as their current one/two-liner approach doesn't really explain anything for the absolute beginners. However, this can put some slightly more knowledgeable learners off by being too pedantic so Codecademy needs to find the right balance. Within their existing UI, they can probably do this via offering more 'Show Hints' per task like certain computer games where Hint 1 is the cryptic-ish hint, Hint 2 gives slightly more context and Hint 3 for really struggling learners. Users can then self-select how much help they need and don't feel like they are being spoonfed. If Codecademy is really targeting the absolute (but willing) beginners, they need to realise these users are unlikely to google for help as they are used to self-contained courses a la CBT courses in their day jobs.
Agree with imjared about the sweet badges - if they want to get the crowd (or maybe just me) going, they should start offering the options for users to buy some embroidered patches or 3D printed versions of the achievements!
I like the concept of in-browser coding as it removes the set-up barrier for noobs like myself, who struggled with setting up Python on Windows!
It would be great if there are better instructions as to what one needs to do. The tips aren't really tips when the info provided are essential to progress. It's pretty daunting for a beginner to go through the github page when I only need a couple of lines on the key need-to-knows for that particular level.
I echo gerggerg and trun's suggestion of step-by-step animation as the output failures leaves me none the wiser as to what went wrong as it's gibberish to me just now.