Learning Track Snags

[depial]

There are a couple issues with the syllabus on the learning track, so I think it would be good to catalog them here.

• Booleans: I was able to master the concept, however, the exercise is still listed as Available instead of Published.
• Vectors: I can't unlock this concept, and when hovering over the concept on the syllabus, it reads Learn to unlock this concept. when it should say Learn Conditionals to unlock this concept. Also, the concept page shows it has 0 exercises, even while there is an exercise listed as Published.

One thing I've noticed is that Annalys Infiltration (exercise for Booleans) is a preexisting exercise, and when I looked at it in concept.wip, the stub name is game.jl instead of annalyns-infiltration.jl, as it is in concept. It is game.jl which shows up on the website when trying to complete the exercise, so this may be why my exercise is still showing as Available.

[colinleach]

Thanks for documenting that. I haven't had chance to look at it today (picking up a guest from Phoenix airport, so I spent quite a few hours on I-10). I'll get back to you...

[depial]

No worries! Have a fun time with your guest!

It looks like my guests will be here next week, so I won't have much time then either.

[colinleach]

One thing I've noticed is that Annalyns Infiltration (exercise for Booleans) is a preexisting exercise, and when I looked at it in concept.wip, the slug name is game.jl instead of annalyns-infiltration.jl

Also, the Practice page lists both Annalyn's Infiltration and Annalyns Infiltration (no apostrophe).

I think we're going to have to delete julia/exercises/concept.wip/annalyns-infiltration to untangle this. It makes everyone nervous (the GH-Website connection is fairly brittle), but things are so broken already that I believe it's now worth the risk. We can revert if necessary. Should I PR the change?

Vectors: I can't unlock this concept, and when hovering over the concept on the syllabus, it reads Learn to unlock this concept

I can reproduce this.

the concept page shows it has 0 exercises

This problem seems to have gone away, as mysteriously as it arrived.

[colinleach]

I just completed cater-waiter on the website, and belatedly noticed that the exemplar uses a slurp: compile_ingredients(dishes) = union(dishes...)

If that's important, we will need to move sets below functions. I don't think that should be a problem.

Similarly, I used a comprehension in squeaky-clean, though I haven't even written that Concept yet! I'll need to think about what to do about this - maybe move comprehensions up the tree. I suspect at least 99% of Julia learners have used Python before, so the 1-dimensional case is pretty simple for them (not higher dimensions, unless they are fluent in NumPy).

[depial]

I think we're going to have to delete julia/exercises/concept.wip/annalyns-infiltration to untangle this.

Can we set the status of this exercise to deprecated? That might be a better first try if it's possible.

This problem seems to have gone away, as mysteriously as it arrived.

I looked on the website and I still see all the issues with Vectors that I mention here... Not sure why you wouldn't see them but I do.

If that's important, we will need to move sets below functions.

I think that splat is necessary, since I believe union() and other set operations do not work with a collection that has not been splatted, so the student will need to know how to do that considering the data structures we're dealing with.

[colinleach]

Can we set the status of this exercise to deprecated?

I don't know how we would do that. "status": "deprecated' is normally in the top-level config.json, where none of the concept.wip exercises are listed (and they don't have UUIDs).

I looked on the website and I still see all the issues with Vectors that I mention here

OK, we were looking in different places. We agree that this is badly screwed up.

I think that splat is necessary

No worries, we just need to change the prereqs. As far as I can see, this has no wider impact.

Meanwhile, I'm tempted to add a short section on 1-D comprehensions in vector-operations/about.md. We'll then need to return to this in more detail later, after covering n-dimensional arrays.

[colinleach]

On Annalyn's Infiltration: I should add that my code shows up in both:

Although they both show up in the practice exercises, they remain deeply entangled.

[depial]

I don't know how we would do that. "status": "deprecated' is normally in the top-level config.json

There appears to be another "top-level" config.json in the concepts.wip folder. Maybe we could try there?

On Annalyn's Infiltration: I should add that my code shows up in both:

Shows the same for me. I checked my two Annalyn's Inflitrations, and I get the same game.jl for the slug for both in the online editor, where the new one should have annalyns-infiltration.jl, also, if I solve one, it shows in the other too, so they both go to the exercise in concept.wip. My brain is a bit too fogged over right now to delve deeper into what's causing this (although I see the two slugs are the same annalyns-infiltration in the two top-level config.jsons). If the deprecation idea doesn't work, what about trying to rename the new exercise (analynns-infiltration or the like) or at least the slug? We could then deprecate the old one in the "normal" top-level config.json and add an new entry with the new exercise. I assume this is effectively like deleting the new exercise, so I'm not sure if this is a great solution, but maybe there's less of a chance of breaking something (since nothing seems to be pointing at the new one)? Just another possibility to consider I guess.

Meanwhile, I'm tempted to add a short section on 1-D comprehensions in vector-operations/about.md. We'll then need to return to this in more detail later, after covering n-dimensional arrays.

I agree this seems like a reasonable place to give an introduction to comprehensions.

[colinleach]

There appears to be another "top-level" config.json in the concepts.wip folder

Ouch - in all the time I've been looking at this, I never noticed that. Good catch!

I suggest adding "status": "deprecated' to the exercises we've rewritten (lasagna, annalyns-infiltration, elyses-enchantments), plus maybe a few we've chosen not to use. The other exercises are strongly biased towards later-stage concepts (a criticism at the time), so some of them are likely to be recycled when we get to that part of the syllabus.

Meanwhile, the useful slug could become something like new-annelyns-infiltration? We might trip over other stuff with 'annelyns-infiltration2`, plus Jeremy seems to have an emotional aversion to adding number suffixes.

P.S. Progress is still slow on inventory-management. My brain is still slow, and my body is not much better...

[depial]

I suggest adding "status": "deprecated" to the exercises we've rewritten

I agree and think setting the status to "deprecated" in these exercises seems like a good starting point. If that doesn't work, we can try changing the slug name (as that's the only thing that the two entries seem to share). I'll throw together a PR with the new statuses.

P.S. Progress is still slow on inventory-management. My brain is still slow, and my body is not much better...

We seem to be in the same boat! My body is coming along, but my brain is lagging behind from a couple of nights of lost sleep. I'm hoping to get back to complex numbers soon, though.

[depial]

I may have found another thing that could cause some confusion between concept and concept.wip exercises in eachexercise.jl. This function seems to loop through the exercise folders as: ("concept", "concept.wip", "practice"), in that order, and checks each on for the exercise. Maybe the runner is deferring to the last seen exercise? I wonder if we could simply switch the order to ("concept.wip", "concept", "practice") to flip precedence? I feel like that could be a fairly innocuous change to try too.

Another possible fix would be to add a condition that if the exercise exists in concept the function should continue past any concept.wip versions. Something like:

function eachexercise(fn, test_only=[])
    conceptpresent = false
    for exercise_type in ("concept", "concept.wip", "practice")
        !isdir("exercises/$exercise_type") && continue
        for exercise in readdir(joinpath("exercises", exercise_type))
            # Allow only testing specified exercises
            if !isempty(test_only) && !(exercise in test_only)
                continue
            end

            # Skip concept.wip exercises with same slug as concept exercises
            if conceptpresent
                continue
            end
            conceptpresent = exercise_type == "concept"

            exercise_path = joinpath("exercises", exercise_type, exercise)
            isdir(exercise_path) || continue

            # Concept exercises have an exemplar, practice exercises merely an example for CI purposes
            example_or_exemplar = startswith(exercise_type, "concept") ? "exemplar" : "example"
            example_path = abspath(joinpath(exercise_path, ".meta", "$example_or_exemplar.jl"))

            fn(exercise, basename(exercise_type), exercise_path, example_path)
        end
    end
end

I believe the above condition would require the deprecation of any concept.wip exercises with duplicate concept slugs, and it's possible that deprecation will need the above condition. So, if simply deprecating the concept.wip exercises does not have the desired effect, I suggest we try this modification before trying changing the concept slug name.

[colinleach]

I wonder if we could simply switch the order to ("concept.wip", "concept", "practice") to flip precedence?

Certainly worth a try, if necessary. I'll fight down my natural impulse to just delete the "concept.wip" entry.

We're kind of flying blind here, so I don't have a better plan than just trying things until we get a result.

[colinleach]

We seem to be in the same boat!

If you want to get nerdy, here's a weekly update on what's going around (I think it's free to read). I'm a paid subscriber, so I also get a more detailed report for the Western region. I don't know much about your side of the country.

I never had a professional interest in viruses, though I worked on antibiotics for gram-negative bacteria for a few years.

[depial]

Certainly worth a try, if necessary.

I'll get a PR ready with the simple order change, which we can look at after the website updates (I suppose the minimum sign of it updating is that we should see the duplicate exercises disappearing?).

I'll fight down my natural impulse to just delete the "concept.wip" entry.

I believe that the introduction of the condition I outlined would be the equivalent of deleting the "concept.wip" entry slowly, in that it would overlook more and more of those exercises as they become duplicate. If we delete the "concept.wip" entry outright, I would bet we would need to deprecate all concept.wip exercises first or at the same time, but not after.

If you want to get nerdy

Thanks! Mine seems to be more of a one-off (bacterial) infection causing a really sore throat (not strep though). The pain is what kept me from sleeping well, but I seem to be responding well to the antibiotics now, so that is a relief.