It feels that you want to solve multiple problems at once, not impossible, but more complicated.
There is a great leap between installing git and node.js and writing a working, publishable project. I wish it was that easy. The site also didn't explain the process of creating a project from start to finish. It would be nice to see the time requirement for completing one. Is it 1 day or 1 month?
I definitely agree that there is a great drop-out among wannabees, but for them codeacademy style portals are a better fit imho. I tried to teach my designer girlfriend using codeacademy and it didn't go very well, but it was probably a motivational issue. Then I showed her how to modify HTML and she is able to update her site now without my help. So finding the sweet spot it very hard and I feel you need to target more accurately.
For example are you sure somebody just learned about functions, for loops and arrays are OK with command line tools and understand how GIT, Grunt, Gulp and node.js relate?
I definitely agree that there is a great drop-out among wannabees, but for them codeacademy style portals are a better fit imho. I tried to teach my designer girlfriend using codeacademy and it didn't go very well, but it was probably a motivational issue. Then I showed her how to modify HTML and she is able to update her site now without my help. So finding the sweet spot it very hard and I feel you need to target more accurately. For example are you sure somebody just learned about functions, for loops and arrays are OK with command line tools and understand how GIT, Grunt, Gulp and node.js relate?