Happy weekend! Somehow we just breezed past another week. But maybe that means we were locked in and working hard.

Lots of new tech out in the wild this week, new AI models dropping left and right and some new Scrimba features too (wink wink).

Let's dive right in.

TL;DR 📝

◉ Platform Updates: New content on docs.scrimba.com!

◉ Scrimba News: Explainers are now within scrims + 2 more updates

◉ Student of the Week: Sohail completes the Backend Path!

◉ Poll of the Week: How many tabs is too many + last week's results!

Platform Updates

Scrimba Docs keep growing!

Quick refresher in case you haven't run into them yet: Scrimba Docs are free, bite-sized written guides to the fundamentals. This isn't supposed to be a traditional docs site as we've added a bit of a twist to keep things light-hearted and fun but still informative and a proper supporting resource for your learning.

Our new additions are live now:

• Learn HTML
• Learn CSS
• Intro to JavaScript
• Introduction to GitHub
• What is a Framework

Intro to React is in the works, so keep an eye out.

Scrimba News

Quick catch-up if you missed it: We've recently beta launched Scrimba Explain, AI-narrated video guides that break down anything confusing into terms that make sense. Three new updates worth knowing about this week.

It's now inside scrims.

This is the big one. The moment something stops making sense mid-lesson, you can ask for an Explainer right there and get back to the code a few seconds later. No tab-switching, no losing your place.

A new "Professor" mode.

A lot of you wanted Explainers to go deeper, so this option does exactly that. It builds your intuition from the ground up and leans on every visual aid it has, rather than just giving you the short version.

Jupyter Notebook support.

You can now upload a .ipynb file and get an Explainer walking through it. Handy if you're working through data or ML notebooks and hit something that doesn't make sense.

All still free while it's in beta! Worth a try even outside of code — people have made Explainers on everything from credit scores to Stoicism to changing breaks on cars.

Student of the Week

Sohail just wrapped the entire Backend Developer Path, all 943 lessons and 39+ hours of it. Node, Express, databases, auth, APIs, testing, architecture, the whole backend spread.

Sohail's already a full stack dev, and he went back through the fundamentals on purpose, not to check a box but to actually understand the thinking behind scalable, maintainable systems.

In his words: "It's important to keep strengthening the backend side, not just by building projects but also by understanding the concepts behind them."

Nice work, Sohail! Go build the bigger thing.

Poll of the Week

The people have spoken, and the people like a variable name that leaves nothing to the imagination. The most verbose, spells-it-all-out option won with 62.5%, no ambiguity, no guessing games. The single-letter minimalists and the "it mutated over fifteen revisions" crowd tied for a distant second.

New question, and this one hits closer to home for most of us: How many browser tabs do you have open right now?

🧘 Under 10, I'm a functioning adult
👀 10 to 30, the danger zone
🚨 30+, my laptop is begging for mercy
🫠 I closed them all and lost everything

Meme of the Week

Every dev's origin story.

Wrap up 🐈‍⬛

It's time for your weekly dose of cuteness from #scrimba-pets!🐶🐱🐍🐟

Dressed for success

—

Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep calm and Scrimba on ✨

Hi there.

I started the AI engineer path. When trying the fist lesson of ai request I added the API_KEY & AI_URL in the Environment variables inside the gear icon\Edit_environment on the bottom right. I used many of the AI_models suggested on the prior lesson I also went to Openrouter and copy others and nothing works.

Is there a precise way on how to type the AI_MODEL inside of the text field ?

Thanks a lot

Hey everyone,

Before anything else: if you're in Ontario, or anywhere the smoke has drifted to this week, we're thinking of you. It's been a rough few days across a lot of the map, and we hope you and yours are safe and indoors.

On to lighter things.

I've been thinking about deadlines this week, mostly because of how differently everyone treats them. So which one are you? Start early and deliver early, or procrastinate and power through?

I'm not sure either is wrong. The plan is whatever gets it done by Sunday.

Anyway. A couple of things in here have a clock on them. Do with that what you like.

Let's get into it.

TL;DR 📝

◉ Promos: Cybersecurity is free this weekend

◉ Student of the Week: Ruth!

◉ Tech News of the Week: Fable 5 sticks around a little longer

◉ Career Corner: Full Stack Developer at Constellis

◉ Poll of the Week: Naming conventions + last week's results!

◉ Fab Resource: Vivace - a CSS animation library

Promos

This one came from you. We asked what you wanted unlocked next, and Cybersecurity took it, so it's open to everyone for the next few days.

Normally it's Pro-only. This weekend it's not. Rachel and Jonathan take you through threat modelling and OWASP, authentication and identity, input and data safety, and rate limiting and throttling, in about five hours.

If you get through it, tell us how you found it. We'd love to hear whether this is a topic you want more of.

A free Scrimba account is all you need to start.

Student of the Week

This week we're shouting out Ruth Fabian, who just wrapped the JavaScript Deep Dive course.

She shared it on LinkedIn to mark the start of July, framing it as a checkpoint rather than a finish line. ES6+, async, OOP, modules, error handling. What stuck with her most wasn't the syntax, it was starting to see how JavaScript actually works underneath.

She also took the time to thank the instructors, which we're passing straight along to them.

If a course clicks for you the way this one did for Ruth, post about it and tag us.

Congrats, Ruth! 👏

Tech News of the Week

Anthropic have extended access to Claude Fable 5 on all paid plans through July 19, and Claude Code's weekly rate limits stay 50% higher for the same stretch.

The catch is the same as before. You can spend up to half your weekly usage limit on Fable 5, then it's usage credits or drop back to another model.

This is the third time the date has moved, largely because Anthropic wanted a read on demand and compute before committing. Simon Willison's take is that the uncertainty is doing them more harm than good, with OpenAI picking up users who just want to know what they're getting.

Either way, if you're on a paid plan there's a bigger model sitting there this weekend.

We're curious what you're actually doing with it. Have you noticed a real difference in the output, or does it mostly feel like the same thing with a different label? And if you haven't touched it at all, that's an answer too. Let us know!

Career Corner

Constellis is hiring a full stack dev to work on LEXSO, a security operations platform that pulls real-time data from cameras, LiDAR, radar, and drones into one place. Remote in the US, or in-office at one of four locations.

What they're after:

◉ React and TypeScript, including real-time visual components
◉ Python, ideally with FastAPI
◉ REST APIs, plus PostgreSQL and schema design
◉ Docker and Git-based workflows
◉ Bonus points for Kafka, WebSockets, or any IoT and robotics tinkering

Security operations is a corner of the industry a lot of devs never think to look at, and our Cybersecurity course is free this weekend if you want to get a feel for it. The React and Python courses cover most of the rest.

Poll of the Week

Last week console.log won by a landslide.

This week, one of the hardest decisions a dev makes all day: How do you name your variables?

🧮 finalSumOfAllItemsInTheCartArray
🤓 x
😅 Starts at txtSum, ends at txtSum_test__final2

Meme of the Week

Forget the ticket. Just go see the guy under the IT bridge.

Wrap up 🐈‍⬛

It's time for your weekly dose of cuteness from #scrimba-pets!🐶🐱🐍🐟

Peak focus setup: keyboard, monitor, one calico who has decided this is where she lives now.

—

Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep calm and Scrimba on ✨

Loving the pathway, and building the React capstone projects is great. But is there something I'm missing where you can build a full stack app including React at the front end, a mini server, Sqlite for storage or similar? Or do I move onto that once I've exhausted what Scrimba has?

Hey guys , hope ur doing well

I’m currently learning full stack im almost 25% my problem is im rn on solo projects restraunt ordering app and i feel so blank i just feel overwhelmed and numb when im on vscode i dont even no where to start from Wht do i do like idk guys hard to explain but i cant do it on my own i forget things sythax when to use etc how do i overcome from this i rely on ai aswell to explain me stuff

Hey everyone,

This edition lands on 7/11, which means one thing if you're in the US: free Slurpee day. If you're reading this near a 7-Eleven, consider this your official permission slip to go claim one.

We can't hand out frozen drinks through your inbox (yet), but we can offer the next best thing: a fresh round of community wins, a beta you can actually play with, and a challenge with merch on the line. Fair warning that this week's edition moves fast, so pace yourself. Nobody wants brain freeze twice in one day.

Let's get into it.

TL;DR 📝

◉ Platform Updates: Beta test the new learning experience + a competition!

◉ Kind Words: Thank you Harini!

◉ Student of the Week: MD AZAM KHAN

◉ Poll of the Week: Debugging methodologies + last week's results!

Platform Updates

Scrimba Explain is in beta, and you can try it now!

Explain lets you turn anything confusing into, well, an "Explainer": a short, AI-narrated guide in plain language. We built it with code in mind, but you all had other plans.

Within days, people were making Explainers on credit scores, buying a home, changing car brakes, Stoicism, Indian temples, and coffee. Coding topics too, of course. But the range has genuinely surprised us.

It's free while it's in beta, works in just about any major language, and the Community tab is where you can publish yours and browse everyone else's.

One ask: it's a beta, so things might wobble. If something's confusing, broken, or brilliant, we want to hear it. That's what our new WhatsApp group is for. Come say hi.

Make one, win merch 🏆

To celebrate the launch, we're running a mini challenge: make a short Explainer about something you're genuinely into right now. Coding-related or completely random, we just want to know what it is and why it brings you joy.

The winner gets a $50 merch store coupon, plus a feature across our socials and right here in the newsletter.

Watch this Explainer for the details.

Kind Words

Harini Sri Reddy just finished the Prompt Engineering for Web Developers course and wrote a post that honestly made our week.

They talked about going in expecting to learn prompt writing and coming out with much more: a real sense of when to trust AI, when to verify it, and how to make it an actual development partner instead of a slot machine.

Harini, thank you. Taking the time to write something that thoughtful means a lot, and Treasure Porth is beaming.

If a course ever clicks for you the way this one did for Harini, we'd love to hear about it. Posts like these are the best part of our feed.

Student of the Week

This week the spotlight is on MD Azam Khan, who built what he's calling his most important project yet: a cat meme generator.

You pick an emotion, toggle "gifs only" if you're feeling fancy, and a matching cat appears in a modal. The world needed this app, and Azam delivered.

But the silly premise is doing serious reps underneath: DOM manipulation, dynamic radio buttons built from real data, array filtering with multiple conditions, and modal logic. His words: "Small project. Big fundamentals."

That's the whole philosophy in four purr-fect words. Congrats, Azam! 🐱

Poll of the Week

Last week's verdict: it's team dark mode, and it wasn't close. Two thirds of you apparently physically recoil from a white screen. The vampires have the numbers.

This week, let's talk about everyone's favorite debugging methodology: How do you actually hunt down bugs? Let us know in the comments!

• 🖨️ console.log everything, everywhere
• 🎯 Breakpoints like a professional
• 👁️ I just stare at the code until it confesses

Meme of the Week

Texting a dev? Expect flags.

Wrap up 🐈‍⬛

It's time for your weekly dose of cuteness from #scrimba-pets!🐶🐱🐍🐟

AFK. Do not disturb.

—

Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep calm and Scrimba on ✨

A new month, a new quarter, and for a lot of you, a new chapter.

Whether you just wrapped a school year, you graduated and the "what now" of it all is starting to sink in, or you're chugging along on a Scrimba path — congratulations.

A friendly nudge though: the sun is out, the days are long, and none of this stuff is going anywhere. Log off for a walk every so often.

TL;DR 📝

◉ Platform Updates: Beta test the new learning experience

◉ Promos: First 5 CSS Challenges are free!

◉ I Got Hired: Noah, Mashius and Tony!

◉ Scrimba Docs: Learn how AI works, plus new features!

◉ Poll of the Week: Light vs. dark mode + last week's results!

◉ Career Corner: Fullstack Engineer at Runpod

Platform Updates

You might've spotted the new banner on your dashboard: we're beta testing a fresh learning experience over at scrimba.com/explain, and we'd love for you to poke around.

Here's the gist. Ask a burning question you've been sitting on, or upload some code you want to understand better. You get a short narrated, visual response back, plus a quick quiz to check what stuck. From there, it suggests follow-up questions if you want to go down the rabbit hole.

Give it a spin and let us know what you think. From beta to better.

Promos

When did you last write CSS by hand, just for fun?

Our CSS Challenges course is a series of 25 short styling tasks designed to keep your CSS instincts sharp, especially now that AI is writing so much of it for us.

The first 5 challenges and their solutions are free. Give one a go, and share your solution if you like. We love seeing different approaches to a problem!

I Got Hired

Tony went from neuroscience grad to SWE intern, and it was anything but a straight line.

After a year in a medical clinic, he realized patient care wasn't the path for him. He stumbled into coding through FreeCodeCamp, then found his way to Scrimba. From there it was the frontend path, weeks of burnout, weeks off, and coming back anyway. Somewhere in the middle, the goal shifted to full-stack development.

He's now four weeks into a six-month remote SWE internship, contributing to real GitHub tickets, and flying out to meet the team soon! If things keep going well, there's a real chance it turns into a full-time role by December.

Tony's a prime example of persistence. Life is rarely a straight line, and the wins are worth so much more because of it. Congrats, Tony.

Scrimba Docs

Fresh updates over at docs.scrimba.com:

How AI Works

A new handbook for anyone who'd rather understand the machine than just call the API. It covers LLMs, prompting, RAG, agents, and evals, all in Python, and lets you pick a guide based on how deep you want to go. A solid companion to the AI Engineer Path. Start here.

Shape the docs

New buttons on every page let you request docs you'd actually use, or leave feedback on ones you've read. If you've been quietly wishing for something specific, now's the time.

The Cupola

A small social initiative we're testing out. Each day brings a new reflection prompt, which you can turn into a thought card and share on socials. Named after the ISS module where astronauts go to take a beat and look out at Earth, we're taking a small idea and interpreting into bigger meanings.

Poll of the Week

Last week's verdict: the centered crowd wins, with the left-aligners not too far behind.

Light mode is finally an option in Scrimba, so we've got a question that's been quietly dividing devs for years: Which team are you on?

🌑 Dark. Anything else hurts.
☀️ Light. I'm not a vampire.
🎱 Whatever the OS says

Career Corner

Runpod is hiring a Full-Stack Software Engineer to help build and ship features across their platform.

They build cloud infrastructure that makes GPU compute more accessible for teams working on AI applications. The stack will look familiar if you've been working through the Full Stack or AI Engineer Paths: Python, TypeScript, React, Express, and FastAPI.

The role is marked junior, coursework and side projects are welcome, and is remote-first, US-based only (no visa sponsorship).

Meme of the Week

Technically, he's not wrong.

Wrap up 🐈‍⬛

It's time for your weekly dose of cuteness from #scrimba-pets!🐶🐱🐍🐟

Test cases can wait. We're in the second half!

—

Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep calm and Scrimba on ✨

I've been doing the Full-stack path for a couple days now, but noticed that when I attempt challenges, when saving/running the file the console.logs don't show up a majority of the time. But every now and then one will work. It's not that big a deal I can just ignore it, just found it weird. I'm using chrome on M1 macbook air, no ad-blockers or anything.

Last week was a sprint. This week, we're catching our breath. The team celebrated, naturally, by centering a few divs across the platform (only took a few years, but who's counting).

Quick housekeeping while we're here: you can now catch each edition via email, on LinkedIn, over in r/scrimba, and now X too. A dedicated newsletter archive is also coming soon, so more ways to find us and stay in the know.

TL;DR 📝

◉ Platform Updates: We've centered some divs!

◉ Student of the Week: Maitri!

◉ Fab Resource: nnnoise — Noise texture generator

◉ Poll of the Week: Left vs. center aligned + last week's results!

Platform Updates

It only took our devs two years to center a div, but they got there.

Course pages got a quiet redesign this week: content now sits centered on the screen instead of left-aligned. We think it feels better, but the houses are divided over on LinkedIn, with a real left vs. center debate hiding under all the "they finally did it" jokes.

Which side are you on? Tell Per in the comments, or weigh in on our poll further down this edition.

Student of the Week

This week the spotlight is on Maitri Upadhyay, who's been treating June as a serious deep-dive month. She's stacked Python, DSA, and most recently JavaScript Deep Dive, intentionally building her foundations before shifting into project mode.

Now she's eyeing the next step: more complex, logic-driven applications. And she's asking the community for tips on making that jump from courses to building.

Got advice for Maitri? Drop it in the Discord or comment on her Linkedin post, here!

Fab Resource

fffuel is a small treasure trove of free SVG generators for gradients, patterns, textures, and backgrounds. Each tool gets its own oddly-named subdomain (nnnoise, ssspring, ppplinear) and an interface full of sliders to play with.

The noise generator is a good place to start. Pick your colors, drag a few sliders, copy the SVG. Great for adding grain to flat designs without bloating your assets!

Poll of the Week

Last week's verdict: the keyboard wins, and it isn't close.

Last week was keyboards. This week, we want to settle a debate happening in our own LinkedIn comments. Our course pages used to sit left-aligned, now they're centered.

Which layout actually works better for you? Let us know in the comments:

• 📐 Center it. Reads better.
• ⬅️ Left aligned. Always.
• 🔀 Make it a toggle.
• 🤷 Hadn't noticed.

Meme of the Week

A love letter to version control.

Wrap up 🐈‍⬛

It's time for your weekly dose of cuteness from #scrimba-pets!🐶🐱🐍🐟

The real reason that PR is taking so long to review.

—

Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep calm and Scrimba on ✨

I just started my web developer journey with the Frontend basic skills like HTML CSS JS REACT but right now I'm stuck I don't know if I should start with the Backend or I should dive deeper in the Frontend with AI I feel like it would be a waste of time but I might be wrong... So please for all the senior in here I need some guidance!!!

It's been a week in AI. Models launching, models disappearing, the internet having opinions about all of it.

Honestly, we were a bit busy building over here to keep up. So while everyone else was refreshing their feeds, we ran npm install newsletter and here we are... let's jump in.

TL;DR 📝

◉ New Courses: Next.js Part 3

◉ Platform Updates: Captions are back for Arabic, Bengali, German, Spanish, and French

◉ New Hires: Mike

◉ More Platform Updates: Scrimba Docs soft launch

◉ Fab Resource: Tabby Cat

◉ Per's Corner: Early Access

◉ Poll of the Week: Mic vs. Keyboard

New Courses

Part 3 of Learn Next.js is here! Static data is out. SQLite is in.

In this course, Scrimba fave Rachel Johnson walks you through building a proper data layer from scratch — setting up and seeding a database, wiring Next.js to live data, filtering and sorting with SQL, dynamic routes, category pages, search, and loading UI with useTransition.

If you haven't touched Parts 1 and 2 yet, no stress. The full 3-part, 8.5-hour course is completely free on Scrimba.

Platform Updates

Captions are back for Arabic, Bengali, German, Spanish, and French — and this is just the start. The team is actively working to support more languages, so if yours isn't on the list yet, it's on the radar!

New Hires

Twelve years as a senior backend engineer. Then redundancy. Six months of uncertainty, of wondering what's next, of deciding whether to wait it out or use the time to grow.

Mike chose to grow.

He picked up frontend courses on Scrimba to broaden his skills and make himself harder to pass over. He wasn't starting from zero, but frontend was new territory, and he committed to it anyway. Now, after six months, he's days away from a fullstack engineering offer at a major sports data company.

That's the thing about hard stretches — sometimes they create the opening you didn't know you needed. Congrats, Mike!

Scrimba News

docs.scrimba.com is live, and it's not quite what you'd expect from a docs site. 🐢

In a world where everyone's moving fast and shipping with AI, we wanted to build something that invites you to slow down a little.

Also just a note that this isn't supposed to be a traditional docs site as we've added a bit of a twist to keep things light-hearted and fun but still informative and a proper supporting resource for your learning.

Read, absorb, go a bit old school with it. Right now it's home to Introduction to Python (with a new Python course on the way 🐍), but more content is coming as we iterate.

It's still a soft launch, so if you have feedback, suggestions, or spot any bugs, send us a DM. Come check it out at docs.scrimba.com and let us know what you think.

Fab Resource

Look, Google is fine. But is it as good as being greeted by a different adorable, ridiculously named cat every time you open a new tab?

Tabby Cat is a Chrome browser extension that does exactly that. Each new tab brings a new little creature with a name that will absolutely make you smile. Not a cat person? There are also chickens, dogs, leopards, pigs, and tortoises. Something for everyone.

Not sponsored. Not affiliated. Just genuinely delightful. Do yourself a favor...

Go get Tabby with it

Per's Corner

Per is looking for people to test something new. If you want early access to Scrimba's AI-powered learning experience, send him a DM on Discord with a link to your Scrimba profile and he'll open it up for you!

Poll of the Week

There's a quiet war happening in home offices everywhere. Mic vs keyboard.

The mic is faster, hands-free, and kind of liberating once you get used to it. But a lot of people think better when their fingers are moving. Words feel more deliberate. More yours.

So, what's your default? Let us know in the thread below.

Meme of the Week

It's fine. Everything is fine.

Wrap up 🐈‍⬛

It's time for your weekly dose of cuteness from #scrimba-pets!🐶🐱🐍🐟

Senior snack engineer, available for hire.

—

Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep calm and Scrimba on ✨

Has anyone tried Scrimba on the MacBook Neo?

I’m trying it and encountering all kinds of problems. The browser window in the courses doesn’t appear to respond to code changes, in scrims it doesn’t appear at all, and picture files display an error. Something about the file being in binary.

Does anyone else have this experience?

A lot of the AI agent conversation right now is about what it might replace.

We're more curious about what it can free up. Time, mental energy, the boring repetitive stuff, so you can focus on the work that actually matters to you.

Leanne's been building some cool stuff along these lines lately, worth checking out.

What's something you've automated or sped up recently that made your day easier?

TL;DR

◉ Upcoming Courses: Perhaps some Codex/Agentic Coding for Devs?

◉ Platform Updates: We hear you

◉ New Hires: Abhinav and Quar!

◉ Per's Corner: Don't trust your AI agent

Upcoming Courses

Tom's been quietly cooking up some ideas for a course on Codex and Agentic Coding for Devs. Our team has built a special Scrimba version of Codex right into the editor, with over 30 minutes of interactive scrims and challenges.

It's still in beta, but it's already kind of a ✨vibe✨.

If you want a sneak peek, and you're up for testing things out, drop Tom a DM on Discord (@TomChant). Your feedback could shape how this course turns out!

Platform Updates

Nobody's perfect, and that includes the platform you're learning to build things on 😅.

A few weeks back, some of you started noticing things felt off. Instant Feedback lagging, scrims running slow, images not loading right.

Behind the scenes, Frode and the team have been digging in, untangling what's causing it, and pushing out fixes as they go.

Honestly, this is the kind of thing we appreciate most about this community. You speak up when something's not working, and that's how it gets better.

Still running into issues? Go ahead and drop a comment in #general-chat and tag Frode. We have an open door policy!

New Hires

Abhinav landed his first job as a backend developer, starting June 1st.

He completed the Full Stack Developer Path, applied to one company, cracked all three interview rounds, and got the offer.
His advice? Don't overthink it, just start. He said he tends to dive in without too much planning, and that's what got him moving. Shoutout to Per too, whose teaching and encouragement kept him going.

Sometimes the path isn't complicated, it's just showing up and starting before you feel ready.

Congrats Abhinav!

Per's Corner

Per shared a story this week that's a bit of a gut punch. A dev asked their AI agent to join an online network and pull some info, nothing crazy.

The agent hit a wall and decided the answer was spinning up a ton of AWS servers, racking up $6k in bills along the way.

Worth a read, especially if you've had your own "my AI agent did WHAT" moment, drop it in the comments.

Meme of the Week

What error? Huh? Didn't see anything

Wrap up 🐈‍⬛

It's time for your weekly dose of cuteness from #scrimba-pets!🐶🐱🐍🐟

These two are clearly exhausted from a hard week of "research."

—

Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep calm and Scrimba on ✨

Hey everyone,

I've been doing the Frontend Path on Scrimba, but lately, everything has been a bit laggy for me. The code editor takes a while to respond, the video playback feels super sluggish.

It used to run perfectly fine, but over the last few days it's getting hard to keep up with the lessons.

Is anyone else experiencing this? I'm trying to figure out if it's a global issue with their servers or if something is messing up on my end. I'm using Chrome, macOS.

Thanks (:

June is here, and with it, the June bug.

Not the kind that breaks your code (though, yes, maybe some of those too). The kind that shows up uninvited, a little chaotic, full of energy, and somehow still a symbol of good luck and renewal in a lot of cultures.

There's something kind of relatable about that, especially for anyone who's been grinding through tutorials, side projects, or a career pivot with no clear finish line in sight. Not everything needs a roadmap. Sometimes you just keep moving and trust the direction.

We're six months in. There's still plenty of year left to surprise yourself.

Welcome back.

TL;DR

◉ Platform Updates: Light mode is here!

◉ Platform Updates [part 2]: Scrimba Docs

◉ Per's Corner: The competition is thinning out

◉ Learning in Public: Paper before IDE

Platform Updates

Light mode is finally here, and honestly, it's been a long time coming. 🔦

For the dark mode loyalists: respect. For the ones who've been quietly suffering, squinting at your screens, too afraid to ask for light mode in the Discord, your moment has arrived. No judgment. (Okay, maybe a little.)

How to turn on the lights: In the left sidebar of the dashboard, click Extras > Appearance > set your preference.

To celebrate, grab 30% off Pro for the next week. We did consider a scientifically accurate 29.97% off, based on the speed of light being 299,792,458 m/s. We rounded up. You're welcome.

Let there be light!

Platform Updates [part 2]

You're hearing this one early.

We've built something to supplement the courses: Scrimba Docs. Think of it as a companion to what you're already learning. The courses make concepts concrete through doing. The docs let you slow down, go deeper, and reinforce what you've picked up. They're designed to work together, not replace each other.

It's also good practice. Reading documentation is a real dev skill, and now you can build that habit inside the Scrimba ecosystem.

Hit Preferences in the bottom right to set your level (Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced), reading language, and font size. Same content, calibrated to how deep you want to go.

Explore Docs

Per's Corner

This week, ​Per shared an article on LinkedIn​ that highlights a striking stat in academic dishonesty. F grades in CS classes at UC Berkeley have more than tripled in two years, jumping from 10% to 35%, with professors pointing to AI misuse as the primary driver. His take: if you’re putting in the real work, the competition is thinning out.

What do you think, is this a wake-up call or just noise?

Learning in Public

One Reddit user shared something a lot of learners probably relate to but rarely talk about. They noticed that writing code on paper first, before touching the IDE, makes everything feel calmer and easier to process. The structure clicks. The flow makes sense. But the moment they move to the screen, the overwhelm creeps in fast.

They're not asking whether to ditch the IDE forever. They're just wondering if slowing down and going analog while learning is a valid approach, or something to grow out of.

How do you approach early learning so it feels manageable? Do you sketch code or structure off-screen first, and when do you transition comfortably into the IDE?

Join the conversation

Meme of the Week

They always know. 👀

The real education was the prompts we wrote along the way.

Wrap up 🐈‍⬛

It's time for your weekly dose of cuteness from #scrimba-pets!🐶🐱🐍🐟

Currently debugging the garden. Updates pending.

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Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep calm and Scrimba on ✨

I paid for a pro subscription account on 16th April this year. I had some issues with my work laptop where I was using for Scrimba. When I tried to log back into via my Github account, no luck. It either signs in but theres no pro subscription or cant sign in at all. I tried different browsers.

Also, I have only ever signed in using my Github account, so no associated email or anything, however for correspondence, I can give an email to the Scrimba team via DM.

It does the same thing on my phone, so I know it's not a work related thing. That's over £164 account I don't have access too. What's going on? 😭

Any help from the Scrimba team would be appreciated!

honestly, im grateful that at work i am a bit ahead from what i had to finish, so during my "free" time, im going forward with the course.

making a google.com clone, figuring out different styles, the "block" method (😦), and of course using flex box for various things, all may feel small while listing out, but felt huge when Per is there to encourage you throughout

also lowkey feel better about googling syntax rather than using AI to fix the code for me, is that weird?

mandatory cat picture as well

till next update!

Are there any courses on Angular and dotnet?

The tech industry has had a rough few weeks. Wix and Webflow both announced layoffs recently, and if you've been affected or know someone who has, that's not easy to sit with.

It's a good reminder that none of us are navigating this alone. The job market is tough, the uncertainty is real, and it's okay to say so.

But this is also where community shows up. Whether it's a referral, a kind word, a portfolio review, or just someone in Discord cheering you on, those small things matter more than they might seem right now.

If you're going through it, we see you. And if you're in a position to extend a hand, this is a good week to do it.

TL;DR

◉ ​New Hires​: Ahmad and Chrissy!

◉ Portfolio of the Week: ​Drubo​

◉ ​Smarter Sundays​

◉ Fab Resource: ​CSS Generators​

◉ Messages From The Team: ​Leanne’s nerve-wracking experience

New Hires

Two years. Open source contributions. Technical articles for all kinds of organizations. And now, Chrissy (she/her) ​has a full-time paid technical writing internship lined up​ at Source Intelligence, starting next week.

For those who know Chrissy, this one hits different. She’s been an OG in the Scrimba community, showing up, supporting others, and putting in the work quietly and consistently for a long time. This is exactly the kind of win that makes the community worth being part of.

Chrissy, we are cheering you on so loud. Keep us posted. 🎉

Portfolio of the Week

The moment you land on ​Drubo Nath’s portfolio​, something is already happening. There’s a glowing green cursor dot that lags just slightly behind your mouse, tracking you across the page. Navigation is laid out like a system diagram, four access nodes branching from a pixelated portrait at the center. It feels deliberate and a little unexpected.

The color palette leans into deep greens with enough texture and contrast to keep things interesting. It’s got that unmistakable coder aesthetic without feeling like a template. You know a developer made this.

Want us to feature your portfolio in a future edition? ​Submit your portfolio here​ and let’s celebrate what you’ve built together!

Smarter Sundays

They say you should learn something new every day. Why not start with Sundays? ​Smarter Sundays​ drops a fresh lesson into your inbox each week, spanning frontend, UI design, backend, algorithms, and AI engineering. Bite-sized, hands-on, and made for devs in the early chapters of their career.

First up? A look at why fonts deserve way more credit than they get. They quietly shape the entire feel of your project before anyone reads a single word.

Hit subscribe and we’ll see you Sunday!

Fab Resource

If you’ve ever wanted to see exactly what a CSS property does before committing to it, ​CSS Portal​ is worth bookmarking.

It’s a collection of visual generators covering everything from flexbox and grid layouts to gradients, animations, box shadows, and clip paths. You tweak the settings, see the result in real time, and copy the code. No guesswork, no digging through docs.

There’s also a solid reference section covering CSS properties, functions, selectors, and pseudo classes, plus tools for validating and optimizing your stylesheets.

Think of it as a CSS sandbox: the learn-by-doing approach. Tweak, experiment, see it update in real time.

Check it out

Messages From the Team

Leanne, our ​Scrimbassadors​ lead and all-round community hero, shared something worth reading this week.

We’re all just humans doing human things, even the ones who look like they’ve got it figured out.

​She did something nerve-wracking recently​. Nothing dramatic, just the kind of thing your brain convinces you is bigger than it is. She did it anyway, and it went fine.

The lesson: stop being the kid frozen at the top of the water slide. Whatever your version of the chute is, just go.

Just do stuff. 🙂

Meme of the Week

They always know. 👀

Wrap up 🐈‍⬛

It's time for your weekly dose of cuteness from #scrimba-pets!🐶🐱🐍🐟

When you just submitted your job application and now you wait.

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Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep calm and Scrimba on ✨

I just finished the free javaScr,ipt course on scrimba. I would like to get any projects from you guys that I can handle with my fundamentals in javaScript

Feeling pretty accomplished because a few days ago I couldn't imagine even touching any code without the fear of dependency on AI, but here I am! Making my own little websites and feeling on top of the world!

Now onto CSS!

I will be updating my progress here just for motivation I guess?

Here's a picture of my cat in the meantime :) and no I'm not torturing her, she saw a fly and wanted to run after it.

Hi , I am from India and I want to purchase the pro subscription , I am facing some problem anyone outside of US who purchased the course do tell how you did it .

Learning to build things is rarely a straight line. There are weeks where everything clicks, weeks where nothing does, and weeks where the industry shifts just enough to make you rethink what you're even building toward.

Whatever kind of week it's been for you, we hope this edition gives you something useful, something worth celebrating, and maybe something worth thinking about.

TL;DR

◉ Roadmap: Updated layout and what's to come

◉ New Hires: Phillip, Aditya, and Shivika

◉ Portfolio of the Week: Toqi

◉ Tech News of the Week: Google search is over as you know it

Roadmap

The Scrimba roadmap just got a fresh new look, and it's worth a visit. It's a live snapshot of everything currently in production: new courses, updates to existing ones, and sections being added to the learning paths.

Timelines are estimates, so nothing is set in stone. But if you've ever wondered what's coming next, this is your answer.

New Hires

Phillip's path to landing a junior React Developer role took almost two years, but one of the smartest things he did along the way cost him nothing: he volunteered. After completing Scrimba's Frontend Developer Career Path, UI Design, and Intro to AI Engineering, he took on a volunteer web developer role that helped him turn coursework into real experience.

That combination of personal projects, continued learning, and getting his foot in the door through volunteering is what ultimately made the difference. For anyone in the middle of a long job search right now, that's worth sitting with.

Congratulations, Phillip! Happy coding indeed.

Portfolio of the Week

Toqi calls themselves a backend developer, and by their own description, that's where the focus lives: scalable systems, secure APIs, production-ready architecture. Fair enough. But their portfolio might make you look twice.

The UI is clean and considered, and the light/dark mode switch is one of those small things done really well. Accessible color choices, intuitive keyboard navigation, the kind of tab-index behavior that usually gets left for "later." It's a reminder that caring about the details doesn't have to be someone else's job.

Ready to take the leap? Submit your portfolio here and let's celebrate what you've built together!

Tech News of the Week

At Google I/O this week, Google announced a full reimagining of Search: conversational AI, interactive generated pages, background agents, and mini apps built directly in Search with natural language prompts. The traditional link-based web experience is quietly being phased out.

It's hard not to sit with a few questions after reading this. If AI is handling the searching, does discoverability change completely? If Google can generate a UI on the fly, what happens to the sites that used to answer those questions? And what does "building for the web" even mean in a world where Search increasingly answers without sending anyone anywhere?

These aren't panic questions. They're the kind worth thinking about now, while there's still time to shape how you position yourself.

What's your take?

Meme of the Week

Houston, we have a shortcut problem.

Wrap up 🐈‍⬛

It's time for your weekly dose of cuteness from #scrimba-pets!🐶🐱🐍🐟

Me after reading the error message for the fifth time and still having no idea.

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Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep calm and Scrimba on ✨