Code Maven is an amazing free website to learn JavaScript programming. A product of Crunchzilla, a startup focused at building educational games, Code Maven provides a fun and interactive way of learning JavaScript programming. It uses live code to teach JavaScript programming, progressing from simple concepts like basic boxes and shapes, to complex things such as fractals and animation. Overall, it is divided into 59 chapters in increasing order of difficulty, that cover everything from variable, for loops etc., to arrays, bitwise operators and mouse events. If you want, you can directly jump to a chapter as well. An animated character acts as your guide, providing hints to learn JavaScript concepts in a step by step manner. The results of your code are instantly rendered in real-time. Sounds like something you could use to get started with JavaScript? Let’s find out more.
Code Maven: Web User Interface
Using Code Maven to get started with JavaScript programming is really easy, as it’s been designed with the assumption that the user is a beginner. There are no accounts, sign-ups, initial configuration or anything else of that sort. All you have to do is just head over to Code Maven’s homepage and start working. Here’s how the web user interface looks like:
Looks easy, right? As illustrated by the above screenshot, Code Maven features quite a simple and straightforward user interface. It’s clean and uncluttered. Primarily, the user interface consists of two text boxes stacked horizontally. The box on the left is where you type in your JavaScript code, whereas the box on the right immediately displays its rendered output. Over these two boxes is your animated coding guide, that provides hints and explanations as you progress through the chapters. These appear in a Green colored dialogue bubble. You need to click the bubble in order to move to the next hint (and thus progress chapter-wise).
There’s just a small progress bar below the two boxes, that mentions the name of the current chapter and tracks your progress. Two buttons, namely Reset and Back let you reset the current tutorial or go back to the previous step, respectively. Apart from that, there’s also a couple of options on the footer. These are briefly mentioned below:
- How to Play: Quite self-explanatory. Gives a brief overview about how to play the game (and learn JavaScript while doing so).
- Lesson Sections: Code Maven is divided into 59 chapters, in order of increasing difficulty of concepts. Use this option to directly jump to a lesson (or chapter).
- About: Provides some general information about Code Maven.
- FAQ: Lists the Frequently Asked Questions about the tutorial based game and its usage.
- Terms of Use, Privacy & Contact: Blah Blah Blah!
How To Use This Free Website To Learn JavaScript Programming?
Using Code Maven to get started with JavaScript is really easy. As mentioned in the beginning of the article, the tutorial based game has been designed with the assumption that the user is a beginner in the field of JavaScript programming. Here’s a little step by step tutorial, illustrating how to learn JavaScript the fun way:
Step 1: By default, the game starts with the first chapter. To begin, click the Green information bubble saying You’re going to learn some programming (click again).
That’s all there’s to it. To keep progressing in the game, all you have to do is follow the hints and instructions provided in the Green chat bubble. As you make the changes to the code in the input box, the output changes in real-time. Bet there can’t be a simpler and more fun way to learn JavaScript. So get coding!
Also See: Learn JavaScroipt, Python Coding Online By Playing a Game
Conclusion
Code Maven is an incredible website to learn JavaScript programming. It makes learning programming easy, and fun. The fact it uses a step by step approach makes it perfect for beginners. And since the output is rendered in real-time, you can instantly know whether your code is correct or not. And if you already have some experience in JavaScript, you can always directly skip to the advanced lessons. Do give this a try, you might just find yourself enjoying JavaScript more than you thought you could.