What is the best method a programmer has at hand to improve their skills? The documentation on the Web is abundant, and the same applies to tutorials and guides. However, it never hurts to explore other possibilities, such as the one offered by CodinGame. Each challenge is a video game, and to overcome it, you must write the solution in one of the twenty compatible languages.
Some physics professors decided to take their entire class on a roller coaster to explain things like acceleration and gravity. Among those dedicated to chemistry we find the legendary B.D. Shaw and his explosive demonstrations (there's a video of almost two hours on YouTube), and I imagine that right now some teacher is developing an unusual method for their students to more easily assimilate the knowledge they want to convey.
What I mean is that even the most advanced and complete of texts has its limits. In the case of programming, creativity assumes a critical role, and one of the most frequent ways to stimulate it is by facing all kinds of challenges, or missions that at first glance seem impossible.
At that point we come across CodinGame. What in theory should be an online development environment, in practice resembles more a video game platform, with options for one or several players. The first step consists of choosing the editing mode (Classic, Vim or Emacs), and the programming language you want to polish. In total, CodinGame is compatible with twenty languages, which can be changed at any time. Once you start the code and see the game in action, you must determine what the problem is during its execution, and how to solve it, modifying its lines directly.
Of course, no one should expect a single shortcut for each situation. The plan is to improve the way code is written, and the more elegant the solution, the better. In multiplayer mode, more advanced programmers have the possibility of developing their own bots, and making them compete in an arena, which certainly shapes up as the definitive challenge.
It's not the first time we've come across an initiative like CodinGame, and we hope it's not the last, but in all cases, you must know something about programming. If you haven't had any introduction to a language before, the best thing will be to visit some learning portal.
