Programiz: Final Commit 2024
Welcome to the first-ever recap blog of Programiz! This year, our theme was to make coding more approachable, and we brought this vision to life through several key innovations.
Programiz: Final Commit 2024
2024 has been a remarkable year for Programiz. This year, we didn't just create courses and features, we reimagined how beginners learn to code. We aligned our entire goal with helping beginners overcome the fear of coding and approach a career in tech with confidence.
As the year closes, we are excited to share our journey with you through our recap blog, Programiz: Final Commit 2024. This retrospective will give you an inside look at how we've grown throughout the year while working on projects that align with our goal.
From coding challenges to code visualizers, we built many exciting features this year. Let me take you through them.
Made learning distraction-free
We started with a comprehensive redesign of our lesson page with one core goal: to create the most focused learning experience.
Initially, we thought showing all features at once would create a seamless experience. However, through user interviews and feedback, we discovered this approach was making the learning experience overwhelming for beginners.
Since our mission is to help people overcome their fear of coding, we realized we couldn't start by intimidating them on the main page.
Hence, we created a clean and focused learning environment that included only the essentials - course content and compiler.
This is our first step into making coding feel less daunting and more approachable.
Expanded our platform from hands-on courses to challenges
We are strong advocates of learning by doing. You can't be confident in coding if you don't solve problems and write code yourself. While our courses have hundreds of integrated practice problems and quizzes that support this belief, we knew we could do more.
In search of the next good way to enable more hands-on learning, we decided to build a different challenge platform. The platform will help people practice their skills and build the confidence needed to approach their first job or internship.
Currently, we offer 2300+ challenges across different difficulty levels, from 'very easy' to 'expert', in programming languages like Python, Java, C, C++, JavaScript, and SQL.
Since our launch in June 2024, the response has been remarkable:
These numbers tell a powerful story—our learners are going beyond completing a course, they are challenging themselves daily to become confident, job-ready programmers.
Transformed sensAI to become a personal mentor
We improved sensAI this year, making it an intelligent learning assistant that works alongside you. Now, it can analyze your code on practice problems and quizzes and offers personalized, actionable insights to help you grow.
We also enhanced its previous two features: Fix Error and Explain Code. Now, users can see their history of using sensAI in one place, which we believe will truly reinforce their learning journey.
While sensAI is a powerful tool for guidance, we maintain our core belief: the heart of learning to code is problem-solving and writing code yourself. sensAI is designed to support this process, not replace it.
Expanded our course catalog to DSA and Web Development
This year, we dedicated most of our efforts towards improving and expanding our course catalog, undertaking several major initiatives in the process.
First, we spent most of our time improving our Python Data Structures and Algorithms course. Following that, we released our DSA with C++ course. We also completed our C++ Learning Path with two new courses: C++ Intermediate and C++ STL.
We also took a major step into web development education with new courses in HTML, CSS, and Javascript, including a dedicated JavaScript in Browser course for browser-based programming.
Staying true to our hands-on learning philosophy, we developed tools that enable learners to solve practice problems within the course. By doing so, we bring the same practical learning experience to web development that our courses have always delivered.
Additionally, to ensure learners had the right foundation, we also released Recursion courses for Java, C, C++, and JavaScript.
Integrated a tool to see the line-by-line execution of a code
In December, we launched one of our most exciting features: Code Visualizer, a tool that transforms your code into an interactive visual diagram.
Now, you can follow along with clear explanations and a visual guide for each line of your code, watching in real-time as your variables change, loops execute, and program logic flows.
We've integrated these visualizers into our Python Basics course, starting with fundamental concepts like variables and control flows. You can try the visualizer for free in these lessons:
Improved the performance of our free compilers
Our free compilers have been incredibly helpful for users who don't want the hassle of downloading and setting up a coding environment, especially at the start.
This year, we took them to the next level by improving their reliability with a solid 97% uptime. Result? - an impressive 572 million code runs in just the last five months of 2024.
We also implemented a share feature to help users get feedback on their code from their peers and mentors. The funny thing is, it evolved in ways we never expected. Now, people use it to save their projects, and professors use unique URLs to distribute assignments to students.
Created playgrounds to build projects on browsers
When we launched Python Playground in 2023, it was a step forward to help beginners avoid the hassle of setting up a coding environment (a reason for many to give up).
Continuing on the same path, we have now expanded our coding playgrounds for Java, C, and C++ programming. Unlike basic compilers, playgrounds support file/folder creations and package installations, which are essential for building projects.
The result? Around 350,000 projects have been created in our playgrounds.
Connected with the community
2024 also saw us take big steps to further engage with the coding community. Our efforts included participating in both physical and digital coding spaces.
We partnered with 29 colleges and universities to provide practical education through our interactive courses, challenges, and career guidance through guest lectures. Plus, we served as knowledge partners in various coding hackathons.
We also joined forces with SheCanCode to equip women in the tech community with the skills and confidence needed to succeed in their tech journeys.
To extend our support beyond physical events, we created our own subreddit r/Programiz. As part of this, we conducted our first-ever AMA session with our Chief Creative Officer to offer guidance for a career in UI/UX and Design. Our second AMA, with our lead engineer on LinkedIn, provided an in-depth look at his transition from civil engineer to self-taught software engineer.
And that's not all. Beyond these big changes, we've been busy making many other improvements.
- We completely refreshed over 1000 free tutorials on Programiz.com to make them more intuitive and beginner-friendly.
- Our commitment to excellence led us to continuously refine our Learn Python Basics course. Through multiple iterations, we have created what we confidently consider the best interactive Python course for beginners.
- We earned a 4.7-star rating on Trustpilot, validating our approach to programming education. We also launched a dedicated Testimonials page featuring stories and achievements from our learners.
- We introduced comprehensive quick reference guides to complement our courses. These standalone resources provide additional depth for curious learners without disrupting the main course flow.
- We also built resource hubs for Python, Java, C, C++, and SQL to provide a collection of resources for programming beginners. These pages include the best resources around, not just ours, so they can be truly valuable for anyone who needs a starting point for these skills.
Looking back at everything we've accomplished this year, we're proud to see how each new feature, course, and improvement supports our core mission: helping beginners overcome their fear of coding.
As a testament, 280K new users joined Programiz in 2024 and practiced with 930K coding examples.
The journey doesn't end here - we have even more exciting developments in the pipeline for 2025. But those stories will have to wait for next year's recap!
Until then, I wish you a Happy New Year and Happy Programming!
If you have any suggestions or thoughts to share, you can contact me at sudip@programiz.com.