Katas, Github and Terminal. Oh my!

How I am using codewars.com to help me understand JavaScript, also using it for terminal and github practice. This post is for beginners who are struggling with understanding whatever programming language they are learning. My first ever “blog” but I wanted to share this because it has helped me a lot.

If you don’t know what codewars is, it is a site where you can practice your programming knowledge. They give you an empty function to fill out that will solve a problem. Codewars is HARD, don’t jump right into it. Here are some tips that will help you get started on the easier ones. Goto the left nav bar and click on katas. Make sure your language is selected (can set this up when you signup so you don’t have to select every time) and sort by most completed. Start with the 8kyu’s. The lower the number, the harder the kata. Start with the fundamentals track. If you can, try to organize the problems you are working on into groups. For example, if you are working on arrays, do a few problems that are just arrays. There are soooooo many ways to get the same thing done, and there are so many methods we can use to help, so repetition is important.

Are you just freezing up at every kata? If you are spending more than 20 minutes trying to figure out the answer, goto the solution. Either google the solution “(kata name) codewars” or just hit unlock solution. Spend some time analyzing the answer. Try to understand why they did it that way, and remembering the syntax will help. A lot of these will require memorization of certain methods, but the more you do the same type of problem, the easier it is to remember. A lot of these katas are just insane word problems. If I feel like it’s too insane or too mathy, I’ll just try a different kata. My wife, who is currently learning JavaScript with me, has gotten such a confident boost from doing all these katas. She used to freeze up, mind blank, filled with intense imposter syndrome. Now she is completing katas on her own, refactoring them to one liners, and pushing solutions to github. Like a straight up G.

After I have the solution ready to go, I open up my terminal (git bash bc I am on Windows), cd into my codewars folder, mkdir a new folder for the kata, touch main.js will create a new JavaScript file in that folder. Then “code main.js” will open up that new file in my editor! Pretty cool.. (I have my github repo in the codewars folder already) so all I have to do is paste the instructions and solution into the js file, save it, then back to terminal.

Git add .

Git commit -m “kata name”

Git push

Boom, our solution is now on our github! (There are a few more steps if you are doing this for the first time)

I used to hate codewars because it just made me feel kind of dumb. Now I can’t get enough of them. So far I have completed 123 katas and it has really solidified my understanding of JavaScript. If anyone needs help with any of this, please reach out to me, we can practice over a discord call. I would be more than happy to help you with codewars, git/github, or terminal.