Codefights (opens in new tab)

I think you should show the comments first without a time-limit and then allow the user to play. For example:

        /*
         * @Input1: an integer
         * @Input2: an integer (@Input1 <= @Input2)
         * @Input3: an integer (@Input3 !== 0)
         * @Output: maximal integer from @Input1 to @Input2 inclusive
         * which is divisible by @Input3
         * or -1 if there in no such number
         */

<insert click to play button>

Right now it takes me 20-30 seconds just to read and understand the comments.

One suggestion for the founders, don't start the timer until the code has loaded, and stop the timer once you submit. I lost 10-15 seconds to loading the code and then got game over because i submitted with 10 seconds left and it took longer than that to actually send.

Hi guys, co-founder of codefights here, the site is still in beta and someone posting it to HN caught us totally off guard. Migrating the servers now to something that can handle this traffic. Appreciate the patience :)

EDIT: OK Servers migrated but it still can't come close to handling HN rush levels. While that's passing I can explain the main concept here.

A task on codefights is a function written in javascript that has 1 bug on 1 line of it and your goal is to find and fix it as soon as you can. There is a Solo mode and a VS Friend mode. In the Solo mode you start with easy tasks and need to find the bug in under a minute, if you do, you go to the next rounds where the tasks progressively get harder.

In the VS Friend mode, you codefight someone else where you guys have 5 rounds facing the same task in each round and each correct solution is 100 points, pass is 0 points and an incorrect answer is -25. At the end of 5 rounds whoever gets more points wins.

Please let me know if anyone has any questions or feedback. Hope you guys will get to try it for real soon :).

Maybe I'm just showing my low IQ, but it takes me 20 or 30 seconds just to understand some of the problems. Maybe introduce difficulty levels? Currently, I can't ever solve a problem if it takes me more than 1 minute - I'd like to be able to get to an answer, even if it's then worth zero points (or even goes into negative points?).

I like the idea, but I can't play more than 2 or 3 rounds. Or maybe the game just isn't aimed for people like me...

I cannot connect with my Google account because I have an accent in my first name. And I cannot create an account with just my email (it sais "user not found")

It doesn't load at all for me... HN effect i guess.

But the idea looks like a very nice time waster or argument resolver.

I have a co-worker that always has the best theoretical cafe solution to every single bug ever found on any computer program, on this and parallel universes.

Would be nice to play this against him and maybe win one or 2.

Edit:

Looking at the bright side.

Most people that up voted the site liked the idea even without seeing the product working( I did).

That alone is a nice thing to have. So if you make it work you will get double XP!

Interesting idea.

Several of the solutions I encountered are just... plain done wrong. They have a bug, sure, but the bug's actually there cause it was written in a really hacky way instead of the simplest way that would implement the function.

I feel like it took me longer to find the bug in the hacky implementation than it would have to rewrite it 'right'.

(For instance, the 'right' way to find "largest integer with x number of digits" is clearly and inarguably `Math.pow(10, x) - 1`. Not the hacky 4-line-with-for-loop thing they showed me with a bug in it. No?)

I wonder if it would be interesting to have something like this run your solution through a simple test suite to see if it works (like my university professors used to do on our homework), instead of accepting only one exact right answer.

The example on the homepage started a countdown from 1 minute, it was "Loading the task" until there were 7 seconds left, then by that time I'd lost interested and it just said "Game Over".

Game over indeed.

Liking the idea, too bad it's simply an awful experience with all the HN traffic. I hit "Sign up with Facebook", then "Edit what CodeFights can see", and the counter had already begun. After authenticating I got an empty pop-up which I closed by myself, and I finished the challenge. I then got the error "Authentication error".

However, I like the idea and understand that this experience is not what you've made so I'll give it a chance and upvoted it.

It should show you the correct answer if you get it wrong.

This is very nice. More engrossing than most games I play. Instead of starting over every time I lose, I would prefer if I was penalized and allowed to continue playing. For instance, if I lose round 5, then I will also lose all the points from round 4 and continue playing from round 4 instead. It's just something that I thought would make it more interesting and playable for me.

Seems really nice, but coul'd you add a solution if you fail in time? would be really awesome

From all the comments here I was expecting it wouldn't work at all without signing in somehow. Luckily that wasn't true and the site didn't seem slow at all so I got to actually try it.

I did like it but really wish there was an explanation at the end with the solution (or a solution). Since I don't know what is wrong I don't even know what to search for.

I am not sure if you have categories for the types of problems but dividing them into syntax/logic/easy/difficult/etc and showing your score on those or even compared to others (this might be what signing in does for you but I didn't do that).

I am sure I sound negative but I was impressed. Especially as it's still in progress.

Great idea but sadly I cant try it out :( Using Firefox on Android and the stock Browser I was finally able to login using g+ but I can't edit the code. I can add something but I can't delete anything that was already there. E.g. I can't change return a to return b. Using chrome I can't even login. Authenticate using g+ sometimes directly shows authorization failed and sometimes opens a new tab to codefights.com/_oauth/google?state=xyz&code=xyz that seems to do nothing. If I close it, I get authorization failed as before. Everything I currently do is done on Android 4.4.4 because I just have a smartphone (N5) available ATM.

I would love if HN had a "Save" button -- save an item into a personal list so I can, for instance, retry a link later after the HN effect has stopped...

/ * @Input1: an array of strings * @Input2: a separator that will be used when concatinating * the strings from @Input1 * @Output: a concatinated string * @Example: myConcat(["Code","Fight","On","!"],"/")="Code/Fight/On/!/" */

Guess s/concatinated/concatenated/g wasn't the bug...

Is it anything like code challenges? I might add it to this list: http://codecondo.com/coding-challenges/

After I fail a challenge, the screen disappears too quickly for me to continue looking at the challenge and figure out the correct solution. Is there a way to enable feedback or solutions?

I love the idea. It still needs more problems though. I kept hitting the regEx problem and failing because I've never done regEx in JavaScript. So adding more problems would be nice.

I think I'm fairly fast at debugging but these were way, way too hard with the strict time limit. It takes a lot of time to read the problems and the quality of the problems is poor.

Ghostery blocks something that seems to break the site altogether: http://i.imgur.com/hTkLTqd.png

I don't like how I can't change the number of lines of code. It'd be faster to completely rewrite some of the solutions!

Great to see CodeFights being launched! I enjoyed the graphics and dynamics of MathFights.com as well, well done, Tigran and the team.

Here's the problem: this is so awesome I forgot to come back and upvote until it was almost off the front page. THIS IS AWESOME!

the Oauth redirect receiver is failing for both Google and Twitter. (http://codefights.com/_oauth/twitter?close&state=*hashed_key...)

Twitter authorization doesn't work... unless that's the first round... did I fail?

1/2 the available time was taken waiting for "Loading the task..." !

This is a lot of fun - server is a bit laggy/buggy but unique idea, very cool!

This is a lot of fun.

Please say which language the problem is in.

Also, many times it seems to hang.

This is like a hackathon project I had this year at HackRU.

I couldn't even try it. Waiting to check out tho

Hug of death?

is JS the only lang you support?