HackerEarth and HackerRank are no longer those unexplored territories by Software Engineers than they were few years back. They have become a common place for all those budding enthusiastic problem solvers who would like to take their skills to the next level.  

There is no denying that there is no dearth of such platforms these days. In fact, it seems overwhelming to decide which one to go to. I stumbled upon ‘Codewars’ which is again a pretty well-known platform. Although, I had been here before, I never really cared to even venture through. A simple problem statement one fine day got me going. What awaited me was stunning! 

I solved a simple problem which was based on a common use case of Facebook. Below are the things I found; 

• I particularly liked the way the instructions had been laid out. They were succinct yet very clear, especially the sample cases. They give you a good insight into what exactly the problem is all about. 
• We are free to code in the language we want to. I particularly think the list is wider here. 
• It was interesting enough to see how  this platform emphasizes on going by TDD. For each sample case, there is already a test case written in popular frameworks. For instance, I see NUnit test cases already written when I took up solving using C#. The solver is free to add more test cases and can play around. 
• Once attempted and all the test cases pass, we get time to revisit, look back at our code and have it refactored before we do the final submission; 
  • Refactoring is particularly important in today’s world when it comes to software development.  
  • This platform seems great to develop such an underrated skillset. 
  • One would be surprised to see where one stands when it comes to the final submission. It’s all about working, clean and concise code.  
  • We can look at what other people submitted and know how better we could have written even a small ‘if/else’ statement. 
• We would learn about ‘Best Practices’ and which were labelled as ‘Clever’ solutions. 
• We can even compare with our solutions. 
• The platform has a lot of terminologies which would take us a little time to get accustomed with. Nonetheless, they are interesting.  For instance, the problem being solved is called a ‘Kata’.

Codewars is all about training and learning while playing.  

Happy Learning, Happy Coding! ❤