I have and continue to spend obscene amounts of time orchestrating the entire systems architecture from zero to full tilt in my language of interest. I start with base functionality applied examples needed throughout the systems life cycle; documentation, templates, clis, daemons, logging, cryption, networking, queuing, concurrency, databases and more as these are the teaching tools about the platform of "what, why, how". Such a simple statement does not accurately represent the details or the value however the experience of having founded and exited several technology companies using this model has proven the approach. With each passing new iteration the system's simplicity of understanding has increased while also adding value in many areas of support, new hires, and management. If it ain't broke don't fix it so after five previous complete refactors under multiple companies this sixth iteration is first for enjoyment in problem solving and then to apply this work to yet another startup. Nothing is more important than the foundation!
Ask HN: What is the coding exercise you use to explore a new language?
61–70 of 73 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the coding exercise you use to explore a new language?
#62Build an emulator like GameBoy emulator.
Re: Ask HN: What is the coding exercise you use to explore a new language?
#63I build a web scraper.
Re: Ask HN: What is the coding exercise you use to explore a new language?
#64I tend to write a toy compiler or the ray tracer in one weekend kind of exercises.
Alternatively, if I bought a book about the language, I end up following the suggested exercises they usually provide at the end of each chapter.
Re: Ask HN: What is the coding exercise you use to explore a new language?
#65My go to is solving problems from Project Euler. Have learnt a few languages this way. https://projecteuler.net/
Same here! I remember implementing little algorithms to solve these puzzles in Python to get familiarized with the basics of the language.
Re: Ask HN: What is the coding exercise you use to explore a new language?
#66I try to solve whatever immediate non critical issue I’ve got. ie some digital glue in my life.
To me the real worldness of that > clever technical scenarios
Re: Ask HN: What is the coding exercise you use to explore a new language?
#67I typically write a raytracer while attempting to stick to a small set of "best-practices" for the language I'm trying to learn. I also use this exercise from time-to-time to test new language features (for example C++20 ranges/coroutines recently). I also recommend this same exercise to others through the book "The Ray Tracer Challenge" [1] by Jamis Buck, because it describes an entire implementation of a raytracer…
Thank you for this. A while ago I was doing a fair bit of Elixir in my spare time, so this has given me a reason to pick it up again. Going to give it a go myself
Re: Ask HN: What is the coding exercise you use to explore a new language?
#68IRC bot usually, otherwise something web-based like a wiki.
Re: Ask HN: What is the coding exercise you use to explore a new language?
#69If one knows C++ then Peter Shirley's https://raytracing.github.io/books/RayTracingInOneWeekend.ht... is a pretty nice raytracer one can type in any language.
Can anyone out there compare this to The Ray Tracer Challenge ( https://pragprog.com/titles/jbtracer/the-ray-tracer-challeng... ) which has also been mentioned in this thread. They seem to be trying to do very similar things, and it would be interesting to hear how the differ and their pros and cons
Ray Tracing in One Weekend:
- Is in C++
- Focuses on spheres
[1]Raytracer Challenge:
- Is Written in pseudocode
- You will be able to render objects composed of polygons not just spheres
Re: Ask HN: What is the coding exercise you use to explore a new language?
#70May sound boring but usually it's a CRUD web API.
But it really depends on the language. If the language is not particularly suited for this kind of project, first I find a good use case and then I build a simple version of it.