I too discovered this recently, while I was searching resources to learn Gleam. I was pretty disappointed to find out that the language version they use in there is so old, there’s a significant...
I too discovered this recently, while I was searching resources to learn Gleam. I was pretty disappointed to find out that the language version they use in there is so old, there’s a significant difference between current stdlib docs and what’s available to you during an exercise. I saw the language creator, or a contributor, on Blusky saying they’re working on bringing it to latest stable.
Aside from that: I enjoyed the exercises, the way they’re organized and structured and the test-based approach. One huge paint point is debugging while editing on the platform, it’s much easier to do so locally. Pull the exercises with their CLI tool instead of doing it in the online editor. It’s the difference between using a compiler in the browser vs in a terminal: I wouldn’t go for the former unless I’m in a very constrictive situation.
I did buy an Elixir book some time ago, but I am always put off by the lack of static typing. Gleam felt like a good compromise. I am still not sure how the whole VM/Actor system works, but I...
I did buy an Elixir book some time ago, but I am always put off by the lack of static typing. Gleam felt like a good compromise. I am still not sure how the whole VM/Actor system works, but I guess that’s a bit in the future from now.
Many years back at university we had a semester where we learned programming in Erlang/OTP. To this day I think Erlang and the BEAM has the best ergonomics w.r.t. its actor system. The functional...
Many years back at university we had a semester where we learned programming in Erlang/OTP. To this day I think Erlang and the BEAM has the best ergonomics w.r.t. its actor system. The functional nature of Erlang with the pattern matching just meshed well my mind. Writing recursive functions starting with a base case and then adding the other cases was great! I think Elixir borrows a bit of this due to it running on top of the BEAM (but I never liked Ruby for some reason so never got into Elixir). Anyway, main point if you want to get a solid grasp of actor systems I'd recommend actually working with Erlang/OTP. Setting up a supervision tree and using gen_server and gen_fsm based actors is great. Understanding how this works under the hood by building a smaller version of ORP; creating processes and linking them and trapping their exit messages; could be a good exercise. The language's constructs generally makes it hard to mess up completely and the "let it fail" philosophy let's you avoid defensive programming and focus on more important things.
FWIW, Elixir is in the process of adding static typing at the moment, from what I can tell: Elixir v1.20 released: now a gradually typed language (from just early June of this year) Haven’t...
FWIW, Elixir is in the process of adding static typing at the moment, from what I can tell:
Hope they are able to get that updated soon, exercism exercises were a huge help in wrapping my head around using recursion and pattern matching in Gleam.
Hope they are able to get that updated soon, exercism exercises were a huge help in wrapping my head around using recursion and pattern matching in Gleam.
Perfect timing! I was starting to take on exploring some more systems-level programming languages. Hadn't done C/C++ since college, but with Rust being more popular and Odin looking interesting as...
Perfect timing! I was starting to take on exploring some more systems-level programming languages. Hadn't done C/C++ since college, but with Rust being more popular and Odin looking interesting as an alternative to both I've been leaning on Claude to help create exercises I'd do to compare programming languages with a shared test harness to validate my implementations.
Never hurts to learn classically with online courses as well though, but LLMs able to give "hints" when I get stuck helps me from spinning too long. Pretty cool to see all these other languages though I haven't touched since college/early career!
LLMs are often pretty bad at learning new smaller languages. There is no LLM that can generate functional Gleam code for instance. Either they're way outdated on the stdlib, or far far more often,...
LLMs are often pretty bad at learning new smaller languages. There is no LLM that can generate functional Gleam code for instance. Either they're way outdated on the stdlib, or far far more often, they keep forcing in language features that it simply doesn't have. The pull of larger languages with similar syntax is too strong.
Historically I'd agree, the earliest models had no way to get a good handle on anything outside its trained knowledge. However, with the advent of Context7 MCP or even better pull down the docs...
Historically I'd agree, the earliest models had no way to get a good handle on anything outside its trained knowledge. However, with the advent of Context7 MCP or even better pull down the docs and wrap it in a MCP for querying you can have it pull from source and have it build and test its exercise or best direct comparison using an adversarial isolated agent to keep it honest.
Of course, this is one way to get started and to find analogs with patterns you understand and mapping to a new context (language). For those that want to handle specific problems, I'd imagine trying to tackle a project would be even better but for those getting started I think OPs site is a great starter and having quick comparisons of the same problem (Hello world) in each language's flavor
is there a way to block users on this site? nevermind that, labels on comments work differently to how i thought
is there a way to block users on this site? or can i just label a comment as something like ai booster and hide that? nevermind that, labels on comments work differently to how i thought
Hadn't tried labels other than to do exemplary, but feel free to label as noise or off-topic. Mostly votes or threads will bubble to the top, I believe labeling is the way it is by design.
Hadn't tried labels other than to do exemplary, but feel free to label as noise or off-topic.
Mostly votes or threads will bubble to the top, I believe labeling is the way it is by design.
I really would like a similar feature, even if built into an extension. I know there is a Tildes browser extension but it only at most hides topics from specific usernames, which I do use, but...
I really would like a similar feature, even if built into an extension. I know there is a Tildes browser extension but it only at most hides topics from specific usernames, which I do use, but more customization somewhere to mute/hide/block/auto-collapse comments from certain accounts sure would be nice because i would also like to avoid all even remotely genAI-legitimizing content
lots of languages i haven't even heard of here! i wanna try some of them. in an effort to learn slop-free languages, i'm eyeing clojure, zig, idra, and carp
lots of languages i haven't even heard of here! i wanna try some of them. in an effort to learn slop-free languages, i'm eyeing clojure, zig, idra, and carp
Is the mentoring any good? That seems to be the big draw of this site, though I think I've seen it elsewhere too. How did your friend introduce this site as -- what's the word on it?
Is the mentoring any good? That seems to be the big draw of this site, though I think I've seen it elsewhere too. How did your friend introduce this site as -- what's the word on it?
they're generally pretty measured in their opinions of stuff like this. they didn't praise it by any means, but said they tend to use it as their go-to when learning a new language. something...
they're generally pretty measured in their opinions of stuff like this. they didn't praise it by any means, but said they tend to use it as their go-to when learning a new language. something along the lines of, "when i need to learn something new, i'll try it out on exercism, do a handful of lessons until i'm feeling confident. then i'll make my way onto the project i actually need it for"
they've been doing computer stuff (from offsec to operating system design to programming) for like 30 years, for some context
At some point in the past I tried this out, as I already have an account and there's a couple of exercises completed. When I look at an exercise summary, the interface feels vaguely familiar, but...
At some point in the past I tried this out, as I already have an account and there's a couple of exercises completed. When I look at an exercise summary, the interface feels vaguely familiar, but not familiar enough for me to remember doing anything.
Anyway, picked up the Lua track again, did a few intermediate exercises with only minor hiccups. I'm not sure if I'll install their CLI or not, I'm comfortable enough copying from Neovim and just pasting into their editor instead.
I have been following Roclang for a while now, which is also on Exercism. It's slogan is "Fast, Friendly, Functional", so think F# but with a syntax built with the Python philosophy. It's an...
I have been following Roclang for a while now, which is also on Exercism. It's slogan is "Fast, Friendly, Functional", so think F# but with a syntax built with the Python philosophy. It's an interesting little language with some cool concepts (like platforms, which allow you to embed the language). Highly recommend checking it out!
I too discovered this recently, while I was searching resources to learn Gleam. I was pretty disappointed to find out that the language version they use in there is so old, there’s a significant difference between current stdlib docs and what’s available to you during an exercise. I saw the language creator, or a contributor, on Blusky saying they’re working on bringing it to latest stable.
Aside from that: I enjoyed the exercises, the way they’re organized and structured and the test-based approach. One huge paint point is debugging while editing on the platform, it’s much easier to do so locally. Pull the exercises with their CLI tool instead of doing it in the online editor. It’s the difference between using a compiler in the browser vs in a terminal: I wouldn’t go for the former unless I’m in a very constrictive situation.
Happy to hear a Gleam mention! If you haven’t already, you should join the Discord! It’s a really great community
I did buy an Elixir book some time ago, but I am always put off by the lack of static typing. Gleam felt like a good compromise. I am still not sure how the whole VM/Actor system works, but I guess that’s a bit in the future from now.
Many years back at university we had a semester where we learned programming in Erlang/OTP. To this day I think Erlang and the BEAM has the best ergonomics w.r.t. its actor system. The functional nature of Erlang with the pattern matching just meshed well my mind. Writing recursive functions starting with a base case and then adding the other cases was great! I think Elixir borrows a bit of this due to it running on top of the BEAM (but I never liked Ruby for some reason so never got into Elixir). Anyway, main point if you want to get a solid grasp of actor systems I'd recommend actually working with Erlang/OTP. Setting up a supervision tree and using gen_server and gen_fsm based actors is great. Understanding how this works under the hood by building a smaller version of ORP; creating processes and linking them and trapping their exit messages; could be a good exercise. The language's constructs generally makes it hard to mess up completely and the "let it fail" philosophy let's you avoid defensive programming and focus on more important things.
FWIW, Elixir is in the process of adding static typing at the moment, from what I can tell:
Elixir v1.20 released: now a gradually typed language (from just early June of this year)
Haven’t particularly used this myself yet, but I’m also looking forward to trying it out.
Hope they are able to get that updated soon, exercism exercises were a huge help in wrapping my head around using recursion and pattern matching in Gleam.
Perfect timing! I was starting to take on exploring some more systems-level programming languages. Hadn't done C/C++ since college, but with Rust being more popular and Odin looking interesting as an alternative to both I've been leaning on Claude to help create exercises I'd do to compare programming languages with a shared test harness to validate my implementations.
Never hurts to learn classically with online courses as well though, but LLMs able to give "hints" when I get stuck helps me from spinning too long. Pretty cool to see all these other languages though I haven't touched since college/early career!
LLMs are often pretty bad at learning new smaller languages. There is no LLM that can generate functional Gleam code for instance. Either they're way outdated on the stdlib, or far far more often, they keep forcing in language features that it simply doesn't have. The pull of larger languages with similar syntax is too strong.
Historically I'd agree, the earliest models had no way to get a good handle on anything outside its trained knowledge. However, with the advent of Context7 MCP or even better pull down the docs and wrap it in a MCP for querying you can have it pull from source and have it build and test its exercise or best direct comparison using an adversarial isolated agent to keep it honest.
Of course, this is one way to get started and to find analogs with patterns you understand and mapping to a new context (language). For those that want to handle specific problems, I'd imagine trying to tackle a project would be even better but for those getting started I think OPs site is a great starter and having quick comparisons of the same problem (Hello world) in each language's flavor
is there a way to block users on this site?
or can i just label a comment as something likenevermind that, labels on comments work differently to how i thoughtai boosterand hide that?Hadn't tried labels other than to do exemplary, but feel free to label as noise or off-topic.
Mostly votes or threads will bubble to the top, I believe labeling is the way it is by design.
I really would like a similar feature, even if built into an extension. I know there is a Tildes browser extension but it only at most hides topics from specific usernames, which I do use, but more customization somewhere to mute/hide/block/auto-collapse comments from certain accounts sure would be nice because i would also like to avoid all even remotely genAI-legitimizing content
lots of languages i haven't even heard of here! i wanna try some of them. in an effort to learn slop-free languages, i'm eyeing clojure, zig, idra, and carp
Is the mentoring any good? That seems to be the big draw of this site, though I think I've seen it elsewhere too. How did your friend introduce this site as -- what's the word on it?
they're generally pretty measured in their opinions of stuff like this. they didn't praise it by any means, but said they tend to use it as their go-to when learning a new language. something along the lines of, "when i need to learn something new, i'll try it out on exercism, do a handful of lessons until i'm feeling confident. then i'll make my way onto the project i actually need it for"
they've been doing computer stuff (from offsec to operating system design to programming) for like 30 years, for some context
At some point in the past I tried this out, as I already have an account and there's a couple of exercises completed. When I look at an exercise summary, the interface feels vaguely familiar, but not familiar enough for me to remember doing anything.
Anyway, picked up the Lua track again, did a few intermediate exercises with only minor hiccups. I'm not sure if I'll install their CLI or not, I'm comfortable enough copying from Neovim and just pasting into their editor instead.
I have been following Roclang for a while now, which is also on Exercism. It's slogan is "Fast, Friendly, Functional", so think F# but with a syntax built with the Python philosophy. It's an interesting little language with some cool concepts (like platforms, which allow you to embed the language). Highly recommend checking it out!