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Exercism.io – Become a better programmer

educationware.net

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Re: Exercism.io – Become a better programmer

#11

Post by wongarsu »

MadcapJake wrote: post #8
omgtehlion wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like it just downloads/uploads plain data to the web service. I thought that in this age of internet technologies a web site would be enough.

What about curl, wget, httpie? Or how about lynx or w3m? Plenty of people want to utilize CLIs and it's definitely beneficial when learning to program to get as much experience on a command line as possible.

Yes, but what's the value in this website having a dedicated application that I either have to trust blindly or evaluate and compile?

We already have this great sandboxed environment called a browser for running untrusted code from the internet. They could still offer endpoints for curl, if it's just about using the command line.

Re: Exercism.io – Become a better programmer

#12

Post by MadcapJake »

sergiotapia wrote: post #9

Extremely confusing website, are the exercises somewhere on the website or do I need to download an application or are the exercises on Github or what? The screenshots make it look like CodeAcademy with messages/comments, but I can't find the exercises anywhere.

Lots of info on using exercism.io at http://help.exercism.io/

Re: Exercism.io – Become a better programmer

#13

Post by kytrinyx »

menzoic wrote: post #7

whats the purpose of a desktop app for this?

The CLI is easier to integrate into a normal development workflow, than clicking buttons, dragging files, or copy/pasting code to get the code into the browser.

I guess this supposes that "normal" means somewhere near the command-line, which might not be true for all developers.

Re: Exercism.io – Become a better programmer

#15

Post by ics »

menzoic wrote: post #7

whats the purpose of a desktop app for this?

If you mean CLI by desktop app, then... It strips out one of the most annoying parts of doing exercises for people who already have tools and like them... navigating to a website, using some crappy browser editor, file browser, and all that. No copy/paste.

This is the workflow:

    Ask for a new [language] exercise (it selects the next one for you to work on and downloads a test file and readme)
    Work on exercise locally in whatever environment you want
    Submit exercise and fetch the next one

Re: Exercism.io – Become a better programmer

#16

Post by szx »

omgtehlion wrote: post #6
kytrinyx wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. You can also build the binary yourself, since it's all open source. https://github.com/exercism/cli/releases

Looks like it just downloads/uploads plain data to the web service. I thought that in this age of internet technologies a web site would be enough.

I imagine the idea behind this was to avoid having to roll an in-browser IDE with the advantage of letting users use (and learn) the actual tooling that comes with that language.

I personally liked using my own editor, but the CLI didn't provide much added value in my opinion. The tests were enough for me and it was kind of annoying to have to run the CLI every time you're finished just to get the next exercise...

Re: Exercism.io – Become a better programmer

#17

Post by llamataboot »

exercism.io has been an amazing tool to improve my Ruby skills (I can't speak to any other languages yet) although it seems that nitpicks have become a bit on the light side lately.

I'd challenge anyone to pick a language they are semi-comfortable in or a brand new-language and do a month of exercism exercises, refactoring as you get comments, and then moving onto the next exercise.

Even 15 minutes of code practice a day goes a long way.

Re: Exercism.io – Become a better programmer

#18

Post by ics »

sinatra wrote: post #14

When I saw that you expected users to join with their GitHub accounts, I assumed that the exercises would be made available on GitHub and the submissions would also happen through GitHub (on a user specified repo).

You can find the exercises on GitHub (see https://github.com/exercism/xhaskell for example). They have their own workflow for the review process ("nitpicks" and "iterations") which could be grafted onto GitHub issues and pull requests, but it's not necessary and might just make beginners more self conscious about their stuff being open to anyone on GitHub.

Re: Exercism.io – Become a better programmer

#19

Post by llamataboot »

llamataboot wrote: post #17

exercism.io has been an amazing tool to improve my Ruby skills (I can't speak to any other languages yet) although it seems that nitpicks have become a bit on the light side lately. I'd challenge anyone to pick a language they are semi-comfortable in or a brand new-language and do a month of exercism exercises, refactoring as you get comments, and then moving onto the next exercise. Even 15 minutes of code practice a…

and I should say, don't forget to critique your peers' code as well (gently and respectfully) as the site points out, reading and critiquing code is just as useful practice in getting better at coding as writing code.

Re: Exercism.io – Become a better programmer

#20

Post by wongarsu »

aprdm wrote: post #4
omgtehlion wrote: post #3

Download some blob from the internet, then run it? No, thanks

At least their code is on github and you can inspect..

Yeah. But reviewing 1900 lines of code before I've even seen a single one of their exercises? That doesn't sound like fun. I would be far more willing to run their app if I could try the actual service first.
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