

CodeWars: the Hacker Society where devs compete - exolxe
http://CodeWa.rs

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ninetax
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.

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

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

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codewright
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.

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

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charonn0
It looks like only Javascript devs are welcome. :\

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paulhodge
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.

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devcpp
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.

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nathan_f77
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!

~~~
nathan_f77
EDIT: Welp, now I'm really far behind :/

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

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dpritchett
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.

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nicholassmith
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.

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cjstewart88
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.

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ninetax
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?

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fruchtose
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.

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mck-
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 ;)

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

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255martyn
I want more points. WHY???

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

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exolxe
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.

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charonn0
It's somewhat reminiscent of RosettaCode or Project Euler, too.

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boatmeme
That was fun! Hope to see more soon.

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lsiebert
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.

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tjbiddle
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.

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klibertp
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?

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exolxe
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.

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

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billyjobob
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.

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

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

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silentific
I really enjoyed this, looking forward to more.

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pspeter3
Interesting, what's the long term goal?

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

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

Still I signed up and am present on the leaderboard.

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exolxe
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.

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

Sounds fun. Looking forward to it, thanks.

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lexandstuff
Love it.

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j95tin
Looks great! \-- Justin

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computerslol
Throwing a 500 :\

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

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michaelrbock
cool!

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

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recursive
Is there anything that suggests that it is not real?

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djisjke
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.

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recursive
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.

