gsaines

13 ms·

61.
Why “Computational Literacy” Is Ruining Coding Education(blog.codecombat.com)
1 points by gsaines 12y ago|0 comments
62.
by gsaines 12y ago
Thanks for the +1 jbarrow, appreciate it!
63.
by gsaines 12y ago
Hey nnoitra, CodeCombat founder here. Sorry that we've treated you so poorly. I'd love to know more about your experience, namely what browser are you using, what's your internet connection like, how is your computer, and a f
64.
6 Programming Languages. One Victor. CodeCombat’s newest tournament(blog.codecombat.com)
1 points by gsaines 12y ago|0 comments
65.
by gsaines 12y ago
Thanks Jimmy, just emailed you with a question about some business related stuff, but this post definitely did quite well!
66.
by gsaines 12y ago
It was fun to host the competition! Hope to see you in the future competitions.
67.
A Programming War Between 545 Wizards(blog.codecombat.com)
244 points by gsaines 12y ago|42 comments
68.
by gsaines 12y ago
Ah, didn't mean to condescend to people, we've actually met with quite a few great developers who just aren't good at marketing themselves or who aren't aware of the opportunities in the field. People on HN might not fal
69.
by gsaines 12y ago
Hey Maikklein, did you start playing? We built a mini-tutorial into the level itself, along with documentation and API details. We also have a rules tab on the ladder page that describes how the tournament works in broad strokes. If you sti
70.
by gsaines 12y ago
We pay a lot of attention to the way we position our site content, and thought this was in line with the copy for other competitive games. I don't think that competitive games are inherently masculine or feminine, but the critique is v
71.
by gsaines 12y ago
Yeah, artwork is surprisingly expensive if it's customized. Obviously it's possible to get really cheap artwork, but we've found that quality and reliability are worth paying for. We also allow every winner to iterate the des
72.
by gsaines 12y ago
Hey pj, sorry you feel that way. I can assure that our intent here is not to get cheap labor, the code that people write won't be usable to use in any way by us or third parties, so as pdenya mentioned you should only enter the contest
73.
by gsaines 12y ago
You're quite welcome!
74.
by gsaines 12y ago
Really well actually. The TLDR summary is "we got swamped and made 4 placements." We had ~50 good candidates that got in touch, but we took PG's advice to do things that don't scale, which meant I was doing high touch re
75.
by gsaines 12y ago
Thanks iMuzz, that was an intense day for everyone, and it's always surprising to see how much of a splash that made!
76.
Write Code, Crush Foes, Get Hired – Multiplayer Programming Tournament(blog.codecombat.com)
58 points by gsaines 12y ago|47 comments
77.
by gsaines 13y ago
That was us, it's been a wild couple of months!
78.
by gsaines 13y ago
Thanks bnzelenar, we have really appreciated everyone's support and hope to continue making lots of forward progress!
79.
by gsaines 13y ago
CodeCombat founder here. This is really at the forefront of our minds, and although I agree with you that it's overselling to some extent to say that the current site teaches people to code, it's just a disconnect between the limi
80.
CodeCombat (YC W14) Wants You To Learn To Code By Playing Games(techcrunch.com)
32 points by gsaines 13y ago|17 comments
81.
by gsaines 13y ago
Certainly, thanks for checking it out. I hope it goes without saying, but if you find anything that's terribly, broken, or in need of improvement, shoot me a line at george@codecombat.com and we'll get it resolved for you.
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by gsaines 13y ago
That's a really valid concern, although we were surprised by how many of our users specifically requested this feature set.
83.
by gsaines 13y ago
I would definitely enjoy hearing about active open source projects that need help. I especially appreciate hearing from the people running them, it helps would-be contributors get a sense of each project's current top priorities. I wou
84.
by gsaines 13y ago
Teach the world to code with CodeCombat. We're a YC W14 company that open sourced everything back in January. Our game teaches complete newbies JavaScript, but we also offer levels for advanced devs. Our goal is to become the game that
85.
Reasons Why You Shouldn't Hack on Open Source Projects(blog.codecombat.com)
6 points by gsaines 13y ago|0 comments
86.
by gsaines 13y ago
Nice work Tom and Patrick, great to see you on HN, hope you guys are getting some traffic and helpful feedback!
87.
by gsaines 13y ago
Obviously I'm biased, but I think this is actually a good method of selecting startup ideas. If open sourcing the code removes most (or all) the value you propose creating, that's a warning sign. Eventually companies thrive by aut
88.
by gsaines 13y ago
I would be extremely interested in that analysis, but sadly we don't have the data to make any interesting conclusions about big products like that. Our preliminary analysis suggests that for products even several times larger than our
89.
by gsaines 13y ago
Hey Abeiz, would love to chat with you about your experience if you have time, you can reach me at george@codecombat.com.
90.
by gsaines 13y ago
I think he's just bringing up the very real point that we're a for profit company, but accept free work from highly skilled developers. We are almost hyper aware of the need to balance the community and company profitability. The

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