CodeWars: the Hacker Society where devs compete | Hacker News Reader

CodeWars: the Hacker Society where devs compete

codewa.rs

93 pointsexolxe65 comments

Ah, I just have to say I loved that I could just start doing them. No sign up, no email or anything, you just gave them to me. Wonderful.

Being able to see what it was without dicking about with authentication was great.

Yeah it was a really nice change to just jump straight in.

I love hearing this, it's all about a clean experience... Expect more of the same, we'll keep it coming!

I'm signed up, answered all the questions. I'm on the leaderboard or w/e.

I love code koans.

I want more.

Feed me.

As a relative n00b, I appreciate being top 500, open the beta to moar users!

It looks like only Javascript devs are welcome. :\

All devs are welcome! We just had to start somewhere for the tests but the community is language agnostic.

Granted you have to start somewhere, but the second challenge (appears) to not only be JS-specific, but specific to the Prototype JS library.

JS is a prototype based language. I think the word prototype might be throwing you off but its a core concept within JavaScript.

Shows how much I know about JS, then. :x

You were right, the word 'prototype' threw me off. I look forward to seeing what challenges there will be for other languages :)

Yeah, there's a huge Javascript bias. When they describe a dev with 7 to 10 years experience as: "Web Hipster; I was using AJAX before it was even called AJAX.", it's a bit like hearing nails on a chalkboard.

I think the AJAX thing is just because 7 to 10 years ago, AJAX was not called AJAX (the term was coined in 2005).

As for Javascript, it is by far the easiest to implement online, so it's good for a prototype. I don't think it's supposed to remain that way, as subscribers are allowed to choose their favorite dev area.

Yeah, just gave up after realizing that.

I was a bit put off, but it's mostly basic JS and Googleable for the sticky parts.

If something more Lisp-ish is your style, you can also check out 4clojure.org . Same kind of idea (just not presented quite the same).

Oh man, being number 13 makes me really want to get another 300 points to be in the top 10... This is pretty cool, I want some more!

EDIT: Welp, now I'm really far behind :/

I wish I could see the whole leader-board or how points were allocated so I could improve my score. Otherwise, very nice job.

I've completed every point-granting action I could find on the site and I'm at 4029. 2528 of that came from linking my Github profile.

I assume that component scales based on the usual GH vanity metrics. The person atop of the leaderboard (https://github.com/joho) has 700+ 'stars' between his 70+ GH repos.

I'd be interested in knowing what the github metric is calculated off as I was moderately surprised at getting 800ish for my mostly slim GH account.

Nice, I had fun doing the intro questions, good luck with this. Keep it simple, don't try and pack to much into the app.

Hey here's an idea: Let people create their own challenges and let them assign some point values to them (if the person is a high scorer, maybe let them give the challenge higher points). Then other people can try to solve it and vote on user created challenges. Get the ecosystem going! What do you think?

Or you give up the amount of points that you want the question to be worth, and if x number of people answer it, then you get your points back?

This idea has been done before by a site called KnowledgeBlackBelt, formerly JavaBlackBelt--although the idea is heavily perverted in its current incarnation. The site works on the concept of tests and courses. The test questions are submitted by users, but to take the courses you need to pay for an instructor of some kind to teach you. Completing tests moves you up ranks.

I contributed to a few questions a few years back before the site introduced this paid instruction aspect. A lot of good material was created through crowdsourcing. I am sure it could work again.

Surprised nobody mentioned Interview Street. It has a lot of difficult challenges that you can solve in your own favourite language (supports 15).

That Leaderboard is dominated by China, perhaps you guys shouldn't be battling each other ;)

They are all about challenges. We use them as Initiation to show who's legit... There's much more to be unveiled.

I want more points. WHY???

Not to troll, but this seems quite close to Codecademy and HackerRank, without much of those sites' additional benefits.

No worries, appreciate the feedback. Codecademy is aimed at beginners, we're focusing on experienced devs. HackerRank provides challenges, whereas we're promoting interactive competition.

It's somewhat reminiscent of RosettaCode or Project Euler, too.

More choice is usually a good thing, it's a pretty nice project and it's still early days so it might fit somewhere.

I think this is much more fun than Codecademy.

That was fun! Hope to see more soon.

I'm not sure I like the areas. I'd feel more comfortable indicating what languages I know, rather than where I apply them. I think that's a better way to present Domain knowledge when talking about code.

Very awesome. I'm assuming the majority of points are gained via GitHub - Curious what your algorithm for that is. I can see you working with CodeAcademy possibly. Looking forward to seeing more.

I completed the survey, entered my email, got "Confirm your account... Dojo Access Link" email, and then got: "Confirmation token is invalid".

What to do now?

Appreciate the heads up, could you forward us the confirmation email: info@codewa.rs... If you go back to the site (after clearing your cookies or on a different browse) you can renter the same email and opt to resend the Confirm/Access email, that should take care of it.

The code editor could use some work. It was very awkward to use, especially in my phone's browser. Otherwise, MORE PUZZLES!

the first challenge that came up asked me to fix a JavaScript program. however, the logic of the program was fine; it merely contained a syntax error that was obvious if you know the peculiarities of JavaScript syntax but hard to spot if you don't. that's not the sort of challenge I want to solve.

Nicely done. Reminds me of codingbat.com (solve the questions there in java or python).

Call me easy to engage, but I really liked all the +100's next to the buttons.

I really enjoyed this, looking forward to more.

Interesting, what's the long term goal?

The vision's to create a global arena, where as devs we can compete and build projects that matter.

We already have that. It's called real life.

Still I signed up and am present on the leaderboard.

Fair enough. We want to complement real life with a virtual environment and make it easier to collaborate with dev's outside your existing network.

Congrats on the leaderboard status.

> make it easier to collaborate with dev's outside your existing network.

Sounds fun. Looking forward to it, thanks.

Same here! I am utterly unenthused by the stated mission but I still hunted down every possible point just because they were there. Great game mechanics. I guess I'm just a sucker for ratings.

So in the long term, how exactly will this be different from http://www.topcoder.com/ ?

Just wondering... I signed up already anyway.

Good question. Top Coder is more of a crowd-sourced approach to solving a problem, where as we're focused on building an interactive community.

Sorry, you are wrong. Check the algorithm section. It is all about competitions for developers.

Yes they use competition, but its not about that, its the context and how it's used that's important. It's a fundamentally different approach, just wait for our next step...

Is it just me or is the topcoder website confusing? I've never really managed to find what I want to whenever I go there (pretty much the exact opposite experience to the submitted site which drops you immediately into coding)

Can you speak a little bit about how this turns into a business?

Love it.

Looks great! -- Justin

Throwing a 500 :\

Really? Maybe b/c of server traffic. Let us know if it's still happening: info@codewa.rs

cool!

Is this for real? Wow, I'm sure a lot of rock star coders will hang there.

Is there anything that suggests that it is not real?

All the awesome ninja coder "build things that matter" ninja awesome makes it sound like a bad joke.

But we're all awesome rock star ninja web coders anyways, right? Or maybe I'm the only one tired of developers talking like as if they were teenage mutant ninja turtles.

I too am tired of the general ninja/rockstar terminology. To me though, this is different. It's referring to the aesthetic of their self-contained competition. To me, it's like playing a video game in which you are a space marine, which is already a thoroughly explored concept. It's just a framework on which to apply the particular mechanics of this site. For instance, they are saying things like "code wars ninja", not "Rails ninja". To me, that's different. To you, maybe not.

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