Codefights(codefights.com) |
Codefights(codefights.com) |
Please say which language the problem is in.
Also, many times it seems to hang.
EDIT You should also provide a "reset" button if I screw up the form.
EDIT The horizontal scrolling is messed up, Google Chrome 36.0.1985.143 (Official Build 287914) m on Windows. I cannot see the right two or so characters on a wide question.
/*
* @Input1: an integer
* @Input2: an integer (@Input1 <= @Input2)
* @Input3: an integer (@Input3 !== 0)
* @Output: maximal integer from @Input1 to @Input2 inclusive
* which is divisible by @Input3
* or -1 if there in no such number
*/
Right now it takes me 20-30 seconds just to read and understand the comments.
As I said earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8207116
Timing the person's ability to read English doesn't prove their ability to write Javascript et al.
One other suggestion is to add Cmd+Enter for mac user.
EDIT: OK Servers migrated but it still can't come close to handling HN rush levels. While that's passing I can explain the main concept here.
A task on codefights is a function written in javascript that has 1 bug on 1 line of it and your goal is to find and fix it as soon as you can. There is a Solo mode and a VS Friend mode. In the Solo mode you start with easy tasks and need to find the bug in under a minute, if you do, you go to the next rounds where the tasks progressively get harder.
In the VS Friend mode, you codefight someone else where you guys have 5 rounds facing the same task in each round and each correct solution is 100 points, pass is 0 points and an incorrect answer is -25. At the end of 5 rounds whoever gets more points wins.
Please let me know if anyone has any questions or feedback. Hope you guys will get to try it for real soon :).
I like the idea, but I can't play more than 2 or 3 rounds. Or maybe the game just isn't aimed for people like me...
Definitely felt like I was being secretly profiled for a job. Also considered the possibility that if you're good they drop in some segments of code found automatically to have bugs and have you fix them for free ;0)
That's why authentication through reliable big services like Google is a thing guys. At least they get it right.
But the idea looks like a very nice time waster or argument resolver.
I have a co-worker that always has the best theoretical cafe solution to every single bug ever found on any computer program, on this and parallel universes.
Would be nice to play this against him and maybe win one or 2.
Edit:
Looking at the bright side.
Most people that up voted the site liked the idea even without seeing the product working( I did).
That alone is a nice thing to have. So if you make it work you will get double XP!
Sorry, but that's a terrible idea. As a bit of recreational fun, this game is fine for. But judging candidates on their ability to speed read would exclude a lot of very capable developers (as well as potentially land you into trouble under equal opportunity employment laws given the aforementioned bias this games introduces)
Several of the solutions I encountered are just... plain done wrong. They have a bug, sure, but the bug's actually there cause it was written in a really hacky way instead of the simplest way that would implement the function.
I feel like it took me longer to find the bug in the hacky implementation than it would have to rewrite it 'right'.
(For instance, the 'right' way to find "largest integer with x number of digits" is clearly and inarguably `Math.pow(10, x) - 1`. Not the hacky 4-line-with-for-loop thing they showed me with a bug in it. No?)
I wonder if it would be interesting to have something like this run your solution through a simple test suite to see if it works (like my university professors used to do on our homework), instead of accepting only one exact right answer.
I dunno exactly what puzzles like these demonstrate. That you spend a lot of time working in poorly written code?
Game over indeed.
However, I like the idea and understand that this experience is not what you've made so I'll give it a chance and upvoted it.
I did like it but really wish there was an explanation at the end with the solution (or a solution). Since I don't know what is wrong I don't even know what to search for.
I am not sure if you have categories for the types of problems but dividing them into syntax/logic/easy/difficult/etc and showing your score on those or even compared to others (this might be what signing in does for you but I didn't do that).
I am sure I sound negative but I was impressed. Especially as it's still in progress.
I have a pile of "to do" "to read" "business idea" tags that I never get around to looking at ...
Guess s/concatinated/concatenated/g wasn't the bug...
I remember entering programming competitions in high school and college. The first 5 minutes, when everyone is ripping open the envelope of their problem packet and trying to find the easiest problems was always very intense, and fun! Sometimes you would read through it too quickly, and miss a small detail that would render all the code you wrote completely useless. That's part of the challenge!
I agree with you that understanding the (full) problem is part of the challenge in some cases, but since the headline here is 'How fast can you debug?' it has to test debugging skill.
I'm lucky to read and write English about every single day but have colleagues who are probably faster than me at debugging code that will take a lot longer because they'll first have to carefully read and translate the specification before they could continue.
To use myself as an example, it took me around 30 seconds just to read and understand the first challenge, yet I was able to solve it in around 10 seconds after that despite it being a Javascript language (which is probably the weakest of the dozen or so languages I code in). If I was to go head to head with someone, that 30 second read time would be a hell of a handicap.
As for poorer eyesight, yes you'd have a point there, but at least the playing field would be levelled out a little more.
