Exercism is an online,

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

coding platform that offers code practice and mentorship on 74 different

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming l ...

History

Software developer Katrina Owen created Exercism while she was teaching programming at Jumpstart Labs. The platform was developed as an internal tool to solve the problem of her own students not receiving feedback on the coding problems they were practicing. Katrina put the site publicly online and found that people were sharing it with their friends, practicing together and giving each other feedback. Within 12 months, the site had organically grown to see over 6,000 users had submitted code or feedback, and hundreds of volunteers contribute to the languages or tooling on the platform. In 2016, Jeremy Walker joined as co-founder and CEO. In July 2018, the site was relaunched with a new design and centered around a formal mentoring mode, at which point Katrina stepped back from day-to-day involvement.

Product

In the past, the website differed from other coding platforms by requiring students to download exercises through a command line client, solve the code on their own computers then submit the solution for feedback, at which point they can also view other's solutions to the same problem. Since its second relaunch in 2021, solutions can be edited and submitted through a web editor, though the command line client remains available. Exercism has tracks for 74

s. Among the notable languages taught:

ABAP ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming, originally ''Allgemeiner Berichts-Aufbereitungs-Prozessor'', German for "general report preparation processor") is a high-level programming language created by the German software company SAP SE. ...

, C, C#,

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significa ...

CoffeeScript CoffeeScript is a programming language that compiles to JavaScript. It adds syntactic sugar inspired by Ruby, Python, and Haskell in an effort to enhance JavaScript's brevity and readability. Specific additional features include list comprehen ...

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracl ...

Elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of Nor ...

, Erlang, F#, Go,

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

Julia Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e ...

, Kotlin,

Objective-C Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. Originally developed by Brad Cox and Tom Love in the early 1980s, it was selected by NeXT for its N ...

PHP PHP is a General-purpose programming language, general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementati ...

, Python, Raku,

Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum (aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapp ...

Rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH), ...

, Scala,

Swift Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT ...

, and V (Vlang). In 2023, the site launched a "12 in 23" challenge for users to learn the basics of 12 different languages - one per month in 2023.

Open source

The Exercism codebase is open source. In April 2016, it consisted of 50 repositories including website code, API code, command-line code and, most of all, over 40 stand-alone repositories for different language tracks. Exercism has 14,344 contributors, maintains 366 repositories, and 19,603 mentors.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite magazine, last=Finley, first=Clint, title=Out in the open: The site that teaches you to code well enough to get a job, url=https://www.wired.com/2014/09/exercism/, magazine=

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fran ...

, accessdate=August 12, 2018 {{cite web, last=Cardoza, first=Christina, title=SD Times GitHub Project of the Week: Exercism, date=13 January 2017 , url=https://sdtimes.com/coding/sd-times-github-project-week-exercism/, publisher=

SD Times ''Software Development Times'', better known as ''SD Times'', is a magazine published by D2 Emerge, in both a print version and an on-line electronic edition. History and profile It has been published since 2000. The first issue appeared in Feb ...

, accessdate=August 12, 2018 {{cite web, last=Cook, first=Jodie, title=Exercise your coding skills: rejuvenated platform empowers thousands of developers to learn a new language for free, url=https://siliconcanal.co.uk/exercise-your-coding-skills/, publisher= Silicon Canal, accessdate=August 12, 2018 {{cite web, title=Exorcise Your Newbie Demons by Contributing to Exercism, date=21 April 2016 , url=https://www.sitepoint.com/exorcise-your-newbie-demons-by-contributing-to-exercism/, publisher=

SitePoint SitePoint is a Melbourne-based website, and publisher of books, courses and articles for web developers. History SitePoint was founded by Matt Mickiewicz and Mark Harbottle in 1999. The company had its origins in Webmaster-Resources.com, an ...

, accessdate=August 12, 2018 {{cite web, last=Barek, first=Saron, title=Nitpicks and Devils, url=https://www.codenewbie.org/podcast/nitpicks-and-devils, publisher=

Code Newbie In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

, accessdate=August 12, 2018 {{cite web, last=Brasseur, first=Vicky, title=Improve your programming skills with Exercism, url=https://opensource.com/article/17/1/exercism-learning-programming, publisher=

OpenSource.com Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become a ...

, accessdate=August 12, 2018 {{cite web, title=The Exercism Team, url=https://exercism.io/team, accessdate=April 24, 2019 {{cite web, title=Exercism, url=https://exercism.org/challenges/12in23, accessdate=January 9, 2023 {{cite web, title=Exercism, url=https://exercism.io/, accessdate=January 9, 2023 {{cite web, title=Exercism's Impact Report, url=https://exercism.org/about/impact, accessdate=February 21, 2023 {{cite web, title=Exercism's Github organization, website=

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, co ...

, url=https://github.com/exercism, accessdate=June 2, 2023 {{cite web, title=Exercism's contributors, url=https://exercism.org/contributing/contributors?page=718, accessdate=February 21, 2024 Open-source cloud applications Free software programmed in Ruby Online services Virtual learning environments Open educational resources Software using the GNU Affero General Public License