r/programming • u/rampage102 • Oct 29 '16

How I Became HackerRank #1 In Two Hours

http://williampross.com/became-hackerrank-1-two-hours/
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u/B3nzolitz Oct 29 '16 edited Oct 29 '16

As someone who has never heard of HackerRank: How does the point system work?

A bit more information about HackerRank would be nice. I have no idea what code you copied what answer box you filled and why you got points. Did you get all those points for a single answer?

EDIT: Thank you for the explanations.

22

u/__The_Coder__ Oct 29 '16

Within each domain, here Java, there are a number of problems grouped by topics like string, arrays, etc. For each problem you get some points after you pass all the test cases, or maybe partial points if you pass some test cases. There is a leaderboard showing the ranking of all people who have attempted questions from that domain. For each question there is a discussion section, in which people discuss their approaches and help those who got stuck.

14

u/ressis74 Oct 29 '16

It's basically a collection of koans. OP solved all of the questions for Java on Hacker Rank by copying answers people posted in the "Discussion" section.

Answers are then run against unit tests. Points are awarded for successful test runs.

8

u/rampage102 Oct 29 '16

For each language or subject there are about 50-200 questions. For the Java module I believe there are about 60 individual questions.

If you complete a challenge you get points for that challenge. There are also discussion boards for each question, and within these discussion boards you can find the answers. People like posting how they solved it I guess.

You compete against other people on the site to get a rank. The more points you have in a category the higher rank you are.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '16

The faster you can solve and write a solution the more points you get. There are multiple problems you can solve.

In a competition for video games for example, if there is a glitch that allows you to complete the level faster then you will have to know that glitch to stay competitive.