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Does anyone here use Exercism? I’ve started using it to learn Elixir, and it seems to be good. I’m thinking about having my kids use it as well for Python and JS/TS.

I’d be interested to hear if anyone’s used it for a long time, and if there’s any advantages or disadvantages to it. Or if there are other, better code exercise sites I should check out.

  • Paragone@beehaw.org
    6·
    1 year ago

    I’ve tried it, for several languages…

    It seems good, to me, but I’ve learned to invest in the BEST 2-ish recent books on any language I’m trying to learn:

    the difference between average vs GOOD instruction is cliff-like, and I need to understand why things work the way they do.

    ( with 2 different-author books, best I can get, then if 1 author is explaining something in a way I can’t get, then I’ve got a good alternative.

    Better, though, is that if I make myself work through both, then it’s much more likely to stick, see? : )

    I consider Exercism to be a good part of a healthy ( programming-learning ) breakfast!

    : )

    CombinedArms: use EVERY dimension of leverage you can, simultaneously, and more-certainly win, quicker!

    I’m saying this, and I also saying I’ve had to report bugs in their lessons, 1 or 2 times.

    I need Exercism.

    • vivadanang@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Best combined-arms analogy I’ve seen this week. Did you go to command and general stack college?

  • kittenroar@beehaw.orgEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    It’s pretty great - it has nice tooling and well structured problems to sharpen your programming skill on. One issue I discovered is, if you are studying a less popular language, the difficulty ratings tend to be inaccurate - things that are labeled medium might be super easy, while things labeled easy might be super difficult.

    Also, just because something passes in your local doesn’t mean it will pass on exercism - the resources allocated to their cloud servers are skinnier than what you are likely running. This is part of what pushes problems another level up in difficulty.

    • SteleTrovilo@beehaw.orgOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      Good to know! I’ve been using local testing and fortunately haven’t run into a case where the tests pass local and fail on their servers. Yet.

      My most intense solution so far had been a very multi-core Knapsack solution. The tests they provided are pretty minuscule, which probably helped.

  • cyberdecker@beehaw.org
    3·
    1 year ago

    I needed to learn Go quickly for a small little side project and I was able to run through the fundamentals Go track in about a week and a half doing a few exercises here and there.

    I’ve been exposed to quite a few programming languages so a lot of the common principles are there for me. What I really needed was to learn how Go is different and what the unique things about it are.

    For example, I didn’t need to learn about why loops are important. What I did like learning is how a for loop in Go was structured and how to use it in different contexts. Utilizing range was a great thing I picked up from their examples.

    Exercise is a great hands-on tool to supplement and support learning.

    • Cwilliams@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yes! I have the same problem with Java. I am a Python programmer, but I started working with a team that uses Java. I’m hoping Exercism can help me there