

CheckIO - a programming game - duck
http://www.checkio.org/welcome/

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idle_processor
The English needs a lot of work, but it's not incomprehensible.

Bigger problems: the first problem's instructions are unclear; the first
example is burdened with lines so long that they have to wrap; the first
example involves crufty type casting out the gate. This serves not only to
confuse newbies, but to visually offend experienced programmers.

The prompt reads as follows: "Teach Sofia how to use an ATM. The ATM on their
home island can give only 5F bills, which means that the machine will not give
any bill not divisible by 5F. In addition to that, the commission for each
cashing out is 0.5F + 1% from the taken out cash plus the robots cannot go
beyond the card’s balance."

The leading comments of the code do not seem to go with it: "# Withdraw
without any incident ... # 120 - 10 - 0.5 - 1% = 109.4"

Neither says anything obvious enough about what sort of code you expect people
to write such that the tests are passed. The major failing here isn't one of
language, but of design.

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jmathes
This is a great idea, but it needs some polish. A native speaker needs to
proofread the English, and the problems are underspecified

~~~
JshWright
Also some weird coding choices...

The first problem has a function 'prototyped' as:

    
    
      def checkio(data):
        balance, withdrawal = data
    

Where 'data' is a list, the first element being the initial balance, the
second element being a list of withdrawals (plural... despite the fact that
it's called 'withdrawal' when it's unpacked).

Why bother with the list unpacking?

Why not just define the function as:

    
    
      def checkio(balance, widthdrawals):
        pass
    

EDIT: Giving it some thought, I assume future problems will use the same
'checkio' function, so it has to have the same argument list...

Using __kwargs might be more Pythonic, if that's a design constraint...

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jacalata
Hmm, this looks interesting although I agree with jmathes that it needs
polish.

I was really surprised to be thrown completely out of the game world when I
clicked 'solve it' on the first problem. It might be nicer to at least open
the console screen into a new tab, or have some kind of visual reference to
the game world. It felt jarring.

It feels like there's not much guidance on how to start, if it's actually
intended for beginning programmers. It might be helpful to add a hint system?
I'll send it to my boyfriend who has been teaching himself python for a couple
of months, see what he thinks.

I really appreciated having keyboard shortcuts to save and run the program
though, good thinking :)

~~~
oduvan
Actually we have a hints in CheckIO. They shows what each element means

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jacalata
hm. In that case, modify my feedback to say 'make the hints more obvious' - I
didn't see them even when I looked for some. Where are they?

~~~
oduvan
You right. Thank you. We will think about how to do it.

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taybenlor
Interesting how similar this is to <http://www.brainworth.net/>. I wonder if
they had some interaction?

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tluyben2
That looks interesting yet unfunded and conceptual only?

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I_AM_TACO
Maybe I'm just tired, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to start
playing after I create an account.

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recursive
The image on the front page shows "python 3.3", but python 2.x syntax below
it. (print statement)

~~~
oduvan
Oh! Man! You right! Thanks. We will fix it!

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mvzink
Very cool. I am psyched to see games like this becoming popular. Heck, I would
never have guessed my older sister to write a line of code in her life, but
she saw Code Hero at PAX and started telling me about the cool programming
stuff she learned!

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ffk
The captcha is nearly impossible to read. Can you switch to a more human
parseable version?

~~~
lucaspiller
Or replace it with another programming exercise.

~~~
natatara
Thanks for your feedback

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yuchi
Very interesting. It's a shame that it has such a sexist background..

~~~
natatara
Can you help me please understand what did wrong. What particularly is making
such impression? Thanks in advance.

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yuchi
Sorry for late answer.

In a game the protagonist is usually a representation of the target audience,
both realistically (talking to nerds? create a nerd protagonist) and
idealistic (talking to nerds? create a science man protagonist who get laid),
not mutually exclusive.

What we see there is a nerd robot which competes for a sexy looking girl. Not
for love, happiness or nothing. But for a nude-looking robot girl with a
prominent breast. Not cool.

If I misjudged it and actually the female character is just a playable
character for female players, well ok... it's sexist anyway. Why should the
female chracters have such an irrealistic body? Is __that__ what we refer to
with the term "girl"? Only a physical characteristic? That's pretty low.

~~~
oduvan
Why do you think that nerd robot ( Nikola ) competes for a sexy looking girl (
Sofi ) ?

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ricardobeat
Is this just a concept or is it live?

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doesnt_know
It's live, you can "play" it now. It still needs a lot of polish though.

