ZudoJS Academy

How the academy works

The academy is one path in 19 levels, grouped into six tracks. Each level is a course, each course is split into modules, and each module into lessons. Every level builds on the ones before it:

1. Thinking: how to think like a programmer before you write serious code: breaking problems down, algorithms, pseudocode and flowcharts, logic, a little mathematics, and problem solving.
2. JavaScript: the language from your first line, then algorithms and data structures, then JavaScript in depth: the object model, the built-in objects, iterators, the event loop, memory, the browser, Node.js, npm, debugging and Git.
3. TypeScript: the type system from your first annotation to generics, mapped and conditional types, type-safe infrastructure, declaration files, packages and monorepos.
4. Backend engineering: HTTP, REST, SQL and PostgreSQL, testing, database engineering, API engineering, security, software design and architecture, all without a framework. You build a Task API in plain Node.js, a BookStore API in TypeScript, and a small framework of your own, so no framework is ever magic.
5. ZudoJS: the framework, package by package. You rebuild the Task API with ZudoJS and grow it with a database, authentication, permissions, events, queues, caching, OpenAPI, tests and observability, then build it as a monolith, a modular monolith and microservices.
6. Production: distributed systems, production engineering, deployment and CI/CD, framework engineering, real-world projects, and the capstones.

Each course page lists what you will be able to do when you finish, what you build, and the lessons in order. It ends with a course checkpoint: questions drawn from every lesson in the course. Pass it before you move on.

Each lesson gives you two ways to run the code:

Every example also has an Edit button. It opens the editor, a workspace that looks and works like Visual Studio Code: files on the left, tabs, and a terminal underneath. Change the code, run it with Ctrl + Enter, create your own files, and everything you write is saved in your browser.

Lessons don't only show code. Reason it out boxes ask you to think a problem through first: what you know, what can go wrong, what happens at the edges. Try to answer before you open the reasoning.

Try it yourself boxes are exercises you solve in the editor. Try it in the editor opens a starter file with the test code already written and a commented example of the technique to learn from. Write your answer and press Check: it runs your code and compares what it prints with the real output, line by line. Exercises that need your own computer (a server, files, a database) ask you to run them there and paste what they printed. Each check that does not pass opens a hint, and the solution opens when you pass, or after three checks, so you always try first.

Every lesson ends with a test: five questions picked at random from a bank of 30 to 50. Some ask you to choose an answer, some to predict what code prints, and some to write code and run it. Get 4 of 5 right to pass and the lesson is marked as done. If you don't pass, you try again with five different questions.

The output under each example is the real output. It was produced by running that example with Node.js and in the browser terminal, and both print exactly the same thing.

What you need

• A computer running Windows, macOS or Linux, where you can install programs. The Thinking track and most of JavaScript also work on a phone or tablet, in the browser.
• A code editor. Visual Studio Code is free and works well with JavaScript and TypeScript.
• No programming experience is required. If you have written a little code in any language, you will move faster.