How to use Treehouse and Codecademy together (jQuery example)

While many see Treehouse and Codecademy as competitors, I see them as the perfect compliment to one another. One is excellent for learning introductory concepts slowly with a human "teacher". The other is excellent for moving quickly through the nuts and bolts of a concept. Together, you can learn individual concepts thoroughly without having to "Google around" for more tutorials.

Let's use jQuery as an example programming language (really, it's a JavaScript library) that you can learn with both Treehouse and Codecademy.

Codecademy offers project lessons with real APIs

Working with APIs is becoming a standard aspect of web development. I built a "simple" web app late last year that pulls photos from Instagram and Facebook. Working with their respective APIs was a learning curve I didn't expect. I had to learn about HTTP requests, how to read their documentation, and how to build my own app to accept the information their APIs returned.

3 smart people you should follow

Every once in a while, I'll list three smart people worth following on the Internet. They will invariably relate to web development or independent learning.

Eric Weinstein works at Codecademy. His title is Content Architect. I could surmise what that means, but all I really know is that his Ruby course on Codecademy is the best I've encountered anywhere. He also has a personal site.

Ryan Carson is the founder of Treehouse. He also founded Carsonified, blogs excellently on his personal site, and founded a collection of incredibly popular conferences on web design. He's a beast.

Chris Coyier is a web developer and blogger behind CSS-Tricks. He co-founded Codepen.io, which I'm a big fan of. He also does a podcast and stuff like that.