Multiple times when working on the Python track, I thought it would be good to know certain things about the users. The last one was about how people actually run our tests. Do they use stock Python or do they install something else ...
So, I created a short 2-5 min survey with surveyplanet.com and posted the link on some exercise submissions in the Python track. I selected the allergies exercise which is number 15 in this track and all submissions from the last 6 months (~ 150).
My expectations about the turnout where not that high because for people to actually participate, they would need to visit the exercism.io site in the last week, discover my comment and than do the survey. ... but I received 35 response!
Note I: The questions where in a different order in the survey. I asked about Python stuff first and later about the demographic/background stuff (bonus – nice but not so relevant to me).
Note II: I have no knowledge about conducting surveys, so I apologize to all people whose job that is or who studied/learned how to do this properly.
Note III: The free version only allows pie charts.
Background: Age – Gender – Python experience – Occupation – Countries
Environment: Python Version – Testing tools – OS
Exercises: Order – Skipping – Feedback
What is your age?
To which gender identity do you most identify?
How much Python experience did you have when you started the exercism track?
Are you currently … ?
Where do you live?
12× USA
4× Germany
3× Japan
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
China
Denmark
France
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Russia
Slovenia
South Africa
Sweden
UK
Ukraine
Which Python version do you use to solve the exercises?
Do you use Python or a tool to run the unit tests?
20× macOS
9× Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc)
6× Windows
What do you think about the order of the exercises?
(1 – it was easier than previous exercises)
(2 – the exercise was roughly in the right spot)
(3 – it was harder than previous exercises)
Exercises Averages
hello-world 1.77
leap 1.86
isogram 2.0
pangram 1.94
rna-transcription 1.91
hamming 1.83
word-count 2.11
gigasecond 1.66
bob 1.91
run-length-encoding 2.26
meetup 2.23
rotational-cipher 1.74
difference-of-squares 1.57
anagram 1.86
allergies 2.06
Do you remember any exercises that were too hard for you and you skipped them? Why?
«Meetup, since it wasn't immediately obvious how to tackle it (i.e. from an algorithmic point of view). Requires some thinking about dates etc before tackling the code itself.»
«Zebra is hard. I thought of skipping it, but still have solved, though it took several days to find an approach. Great exercise.»
«I've never skipped any. The closest I've come to skipping was run-length-encoding -- instead of skipping I took two months off of exercism and read Python books»
«Say.py was very difficult and i have to submit an incomplete solution. I wasn't able to think through it like with the other problems.»
«I don't like the exercises with much string building/manipulation such as 'say' and 'pig-latin' as they tend to have either many edge-cases or pre-creation of data-structures containing cases.»
«Clock was too difficult for me. because it use class and method.»
«Clock. The instructions were very unclear, and it was the third problem in the track so I was still figuring out Python. The C++ version of Clock is similarly bad, although if memory serves it comes later in the track there.»
«I did skip 'say' because I found it to tedious.»
«I did skip the 'Series' exercise, because I found it a bit too easy or uninteresting. I should have marked that one as too easy on the previous page...»
Do you have any feedback? What could be improved? What do you like about exercism?
«I love the exercises. They're a very good way for me to practice while learning python. The only difficult part is finding a way to get feedback from other developers. I don't know if there is a way to improve that. It's the only part about the experience that's difficult.»
«More links to resources on how to learn Python, more discussion of programming theory (object-oriented and why it's such a big deal, approaches to programming "pythonically", e.g. things Python does that other languages do not do).»
«I hope I can set hard level when I fetch exercise to do. and I want to know the most pythonic way to the exercise.»
«It's a great tool for learning. I have about half my team at work using it on a regular basis. Not sure I have any useful criticisms.»
«I once saw totally different test cases when I looked at the python repo because they got changed. Is there a way to update the test files I already downloaded?»
«I really like exercism especially because of the CLI. This way I can easily use Sublime instead of some wired online editor. It would be great to have categories for the exercises and a way to pick exercises from a certain category instead of just the default order.»
«If Python is my first try for Exercism, I would stuck with Meetup etc., but it's best for someone who learn additional programming language. Even if my Ruby experience is not so long, Ruby Exercism experience helped me a lot on Python Exercism. I do not think this simply means Exercism should prepare easier version, rather I think this simply means 1) we all need some efforts (even it's little hard) to master new things, and 2) learning multiple languages is the best way to understand the programming.»
«Maybe it's me, but once I leave feedback for someone, I don't know how to go back and look if they've replied.»
«I like the current exercises. Maybe include exercises with some applicability like math, stats, working with files, poltting... But i understand that is hard to test.»
«I love that it's done from the command line. Greatly simplifies my user experience.»
«Exercism is nice service. thank You for your developing!»
«The recent effort to generate more feedback seems somewhat forced to me. It's better to let people comment when they feel like it than try to push them to comment. Also, I'd like to be able to submit new iterations to projects even after moving on to newer problems; it seems like I only get suggestions for improvement on old projects. Most importantly, the Linux version of Exercism should have man pages.»
«put some more indrustry-oriented exercises that use API's, just for practice»
«It might be a good idea to propose the exercism again to to force retreat after a first review or a number of exercisme.»
«I think, exercism is great, thank you! To improve something like badges/achievements/challanges can be used - people like to participate in competitions :)»
«I always use exercism as one of the first steps to discover new languages. Some comments (if there are any, sadly) really helped me.»
«I really like Exercism because it gives simple instructions on setting up the development environment and tests. The tests provide a concrete sense of progression. Feedback is also helpful but sometimes uncommon -- i.e. there are one or two frequent commentators on the Haskell and Rust tracks, and if they took a break or lost interest, those tracks would lose interest/focus. Getting people to review and comment on other people's exercises would be great!»
«Thank you so much for Exercism, it's fantastic! If I can wish for improvements, it would be exercises that require me to do something more than purely implementing an algorithm, i.e. writing more of a fleshed-out application. I don't have any real-life work experience in programming, and I think exercises that required a bit more planning and foresight would be extremely valuable to me.»
«Encourage more senior people to comment on posts and help people code more pythonically. Sometimes I feel like I'm writing Java in python or that my solutions are very hackey but I don't get a lot of feedback.»
«I like these exercises and working well.»