Would it be useful/welcome to port some of the Java concept exercises to Kotlin?
This wouldn’t be enough to help students learn all of Kotlin, but it would contribute a helpful resource for students early in their programming journey.
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I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a Kotlin or Java maintainer (yet).
Sounds like you’re asking about making a Kotlin syllabus, for which we do have docs here but it’s worth noting that the recipe isn’t universal for every track, as not every language has the same concepts and features.
Kotlin and Java are pretty compatible, and Java does have a syllabus currently, so i’d say it’s a good place to start but there will also be concepts that are specific to Kotlin and you’d have to work out exercises for those. The main thing is deciding if you have the time and commitment for this, as it may end up being more extensive than you’d expect.
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I applaud anyone who wants to contribute to a new learning syllabus. Exercism needs more of these (as I keep repeating, to the point of boring everybody rigid). Also, Kotlin seems to be a pretty important language these days, with excellent tooling (JetBrains) and Google pushing it for Android development.
It’s a lot of work, but porting the first few exercises/concepts from a related track should be manageable - these are (deliberately) pretty standard across tracks.
My instinct is to offer to help, by writing some concept docs. A couple of problems with that:
- I’m still up to my neck in trying to extend the Julia syllabus (we’re getting to the fun stuff which is more language-specific, but that’s harder to write).
- I have barely used Kotlin (10 easy exercises solved), and I think it’s at least 12 years since I used Java in a non-trivial way.
Also, I’ve seen the pace at which @keiraville works. Few 68 year-olds could keep up with that, and certainly not me!
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OTOH, writing a syllabus is a really effective way to learn a language!
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To encourage this, I drafted a few concept docs, roughly in about.md format, but named as {concept-slug}.md so I can put them all in the same directory. I’ll add more as I get the chance: if only for my own use (I was serious about this being a good way to learn a language).
There is also a (very!) rough initial draft of a learning syllabus.
Do whatever you like with these. If there’s a demand, I can clean them up, add more links and PR them. Alternatively, anyone is welcome to use them as a starting point, to be hacked around to fit a different syllabus plan.
I don’t mind writing docs, but I’m less keen to write all the exercises: too much distraction from my main priority of Julia. Fortunately, most Exercism maintainers probably have the opposite preference, so this could work.
Also, this needs a more experienced Kotlin user to be in charge of the overall design. I am literally a novice in this language!