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Today I want to talk about the website CodinGame, a platform where you can test your programming skills.

Many people who want to learn how to code or improve their ability find the same problem. Reading a guide, tutorial, or book about a specific programming language (or any other technology) only gives them a few ideas. There can be exercises, and they may complete them properly, but if they want to improve, they need to practice.

One way to do it is with platforms like CodinGame. This platform contains games, puzzles, and challenges all for free.

The first game or tutorial can be used as an introduction to the user interface.

Then, you can start leveling up, playing solo or against other people. You can also make friends — you can’t chat with them, but you can follow their progress.

Everything can be done with your favorite programming language — from classic ones like C or PHP, to modern options like Go or Python 3. Even Bash, Rust, and VB.NET are supported.

It also has events, speaking of which I already have a post about the one that will start in a few hours. I’m sure it will be fun even if I finish at the bottom of the ranking.

One thing I enjoy is solving puzzles. The community has created many puzzles for anyone to enjoy. I particularly like the easy ones. You can do them pretty fast and you don’t end up frustrated. And some are very original. The days you feel more motivated you can try medium, hard, or even very hard puzzles.

The most popular seems to be the Clash of Code, a competitive game with other people (or bots if there is no one) that solve a short programming puzzle in less than 15 minutes. This game has 3 variants: fast (the fastest one wins), short (the one that solves the problem with fewer characters wins) or reverse (similar to fast, but you get no description — only inputs and outputs, and you have to figure out what it does). At the end, people can share their code and you can learn from them.

There are more things to discover: a quest map, achievements, skills, and more. All of these help you discover new concepts and practice old ones.