

A Programming War Between 545 Wizards - gsaines
http://blog.codecombat.com/a-31-trillion-390-billion-statement-programming-war-between-545-wizards

======
otoburb
This is a brilliant platform! Didn't realize the company was YC-backed.

Curious to know if there has been any interest from junior or high schools to
adapt to a classroom curriculum? Current CodeCombat business model seems to be
connecting employers with budding Javascript programmers, but the educational
angle may be a possible recurring revenue stream to explore.

~~~
eterm
Here's one reason why it's not a brilliant platform, check the URL after
clicking log in:

[http://codecombat.com/play/ladder/gold-
rush?email=ohdear@exa...](http://codecombat.com/play/ladder/gold-
rush?email=ohdear@example.org&password=goddam)

edit: Seems to only happen after clicking log in on the main page right side
bar rather than the header one.

~~~
nwinter
Can you email nick@codecombat.com to help us reproduce this? It sounds like a
form is getting submitted somehow, which shouldn't happen. I haven't been able
to reproduce in Firefox, Chrome, or Safari yet.

Sorry about this–we take security seriously.

~~~
eterm
Thanks, I've dropped you an email with the steps to reproduce. Somehow I had
landed on a particular ladder page and it looks like it may have an older
style log in modal.

~~~
nwinter
Thank you! I'm tracking the bug over here and will fix soon:
[https://github.com/codecombat/codecombat/issues/1153](https://github.com/codecombat/codecombat/issues/1153)

~~~
Smudge
Nice response time!

------
highsea
It was a blast playing! Thank you CodeCombat team!

PS. Here's my entry code:
[https://gist.github.com/mpolyak/8af627cbdf596b5e294a](https://gist.github.com/mpolyak/8af627cbdf596b5e294a)

I wish I had more time to optimize it as well as develop additional army
building strategies.

See you at the next tournament!

------
tibbon
I want to play in one of these, but this one has ended. Can we spin up another
one somehow?

~~~
nwinter
You can still play this one, there's just no tournament cutoff date or prizes
any more. There are three other ongoing arenas here:
[http://codecombat.com/play/ladder](http://codecombat.com/play/ladder)

We're working on the next tournament level, which will be ready for
playtesting soon–message me if you want to help! Otherwise, it should be
launched in a few weeks, so follow our blog to know when it starts. Not sure
whether there will be prizes, but there will be glory.

------
asselinpaul
Finished 30th woo! Really enjoyed the challenge. Thank you Codecombat team.

Hope to see some more in the future.

~~~
gsaines
It was fun to host the competition! Hope to see you in the future
competitions.

~~~
rezistik
I've played the game a bit but I just don't feel like I understand it. It
seemed like there were only one or two commands so you basically coded that up
and you pressed play. How does the game work exactly?

~~~
nwinter
I think you probably played the beginner levels? The tournament level in
question was
[http://codecombat.com/play/ladder/greed](http://codecombat.com/play/ladder/greed)

------
waterside81
If any of the Code Combat gang is lurking:

1) What did you use (javascript libraries, gaming engine etc.) to make the
intro/tutorial?

2) The intro/tutorial is fantastically well done. Like really, really well
done.

~~~
nwinter
Hehe, from our point of view, the intro/tutorial needs a lot of work–if you
watch the playtesters, anyway. We will continue to work on it.

Most of our libraries and engines and such are listed here:
[https://github.com/codecombat/codecombat/wiki/Third-party-
so...](https://github.com/codecombat/codecombat/wiki/Third-party-software-and-
services)

There are probably a few more in use. If you are really interested, all the
code is open source, so you can dig into it here:
[https://github.com/codecombat/codecombat](https://github.com/codecombat/codecombat)

------
josephschmoe
I'm worried that these sorts of things can 'railroad' programmers, by giving
them well-defined problems instead of truly open-ended ones.

The real difficulty in learning programming isn't syntax - it's semantics. And
when you finally become skilled in that, it's separation of concerns and
modularization. Any programming learning tool should mirror those notions as
players develop "skill". Otherwise, as a user, you'll end up great at
programming simple AI's...without any knowledge of how programming actually
works.

~~~
sillysaurus3
If a programmer can't learn new ideas after learning poor ones, they're in
trouble. Even pg started with BASIC.

~~~
josephschmoe
I'm worried they may push themselves into this:

[http://www.daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-
of...](http://www.daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-
expert-beginner)

An expert beginner is a person who is very competent in one area, but is
unable to expand their horizons without making some very big changes.

In a perfect world, I would love it if this game slowly turned into a real
programming environment, where the user experiences freedom with a trajectory
that will push them into learning core programming concepts.

------
Vektorweg
Actually, to see lots of elite programmers makes me sad. Because i try to be a
good programmer long enough to be frustrated about myself.

~~~
sejje
highsea kindly posted his (very good) code in this thread.

Study that, for starters.

~~~
schmatz
I also linked to the code of the winners in the blog post (you can also find
them here [https://gist.github.com/schmatz](https://gist.github.com/schmatz))

------
serf
This is neat, and I just started playing with it.

Please fix how it scales for vertical displays. I know that's a strange case,
but it's near unplayable on a large 1200x1920 due to the graphics being scaled
by the horizontal size of the browser.

Perhaps when a display like that is encountered, logic moves the code editor
below the gameplay window and keeps them equally sized horizontally?

------
doctorKrieger
i would love to play one of these, provided it would be c++/python/haskell
based.

~~~
nwinter
We have experimental Python support now! blog.codecombat.com/new-experimental-
languages-python-lua-clojure-and-io

~~~
codygman
I would spend way too much time on codecombat if Haskell were available. If I
wanted to implement it like others implemented these languages would I just
look over their code and try to emulate their process (except for Haskell
differences) they've done? Is there any documentation on this?

Should I just wait for the next blog post explaining things more? :D

Thanks!

~~~
serickson
Come find us on our public hipchat room:

[http://www.hipchat.com/g3plnOKqa](http://www.hipchat.com/g3plnOKqa)

We're on all the time that we're working (though we may often be afk hacking
away on the site/business). There you'll also often find the people who wrote
the parsers we have, but mainly you'll want to chat with Nick Winter, who
wrote Aether.

[https://github.com/codecombat/aether](https://github.com/codecombat/aether)

------
Siecje
Is there a video of 'how' you play?

------
jimmyislive
Awesome work George....

~~~
gsaines
Thanks Jimmy, just emailed you with a question about some business related
stuff, but this post definitely did quite well!

------
rossjudson
Anyone can play at a game like this. It's called Linux Kernel Development.

