Urge to code?

It’s probably fair to say that a lot of us got into this game primarily out of the pleasure of crafting some code that elegantly solves a problem. As meetings pile up on a project, or responsibilities evolve further away from day to day development, it can become more difficult to get your hands onto a proper coding challenge.

Of course you can always try out new languages with some online tutorials or training courses, but (for me at least) this isn’t the same as having a proper task in front of you that you need to solve. I often find the most difficult part of upskilling a new language is actually coming up with an idea for something to build to try out what you have learned.

Code Wars

Check out Code Wars.

I came across this site while I was searching online from some code kata’s to practice a new language. The gamification of the site immediately sucked me in, it isn’t just register your email and you are in, you have a couple of code challenges to pass first! This place is full of problems and puzzles to work through in multiple languages. A lot of these are very academic exercises, but there are some in there with a real world feel to them, a good mix.

The gamification continues once you are a member, with levelling up tied to completing code challenges of increasing difficulty. It’s made me come back a few times over the last couple of weeks. The lads behind this are obviously practioners of TDD, its completely geared up for this style of development. It is really slick, and performs very well (very little delay submitting code for execution).

Good learning tool for junior and experienced developers alike, at the moment languages like C#, Java, Python, Haskell, Clojure, javascript & coffeescript are supported, and it gives the impression that a lot more are on their way, i.e. scala, which is what led me there.