I missed the original thread, so I'm not sure what went on in the original thread.

Was the reason their thread got deleted is because they weren't allowed to call themselves "Codecademy for learning PHP"?

It seems like it's pretty common for people to say "Heroku for this", "Airbnb for that". Are those "X for Y" not allowed on HN?

'Are those "X for Y" not allowed on HN?

This isn't a case of X for Y. They both do X, but one is language specific, it seems.

When the story hit, I immediately thought it was a Codecademy product and was surprised to find a price tag for the opportunity to move forward within the course.

You are correct that we both teach programming and hence the blog post. That said, we've removed the pay wall for the PHP course and would appreciate your feedback. Thanks!