In this line in the instructions for the BlackJack instructions, I think it would make sense to replace “figure” with “face card”, or something else. I have never heard the word “figure” used to describe a type of playing card, and I was only able to figure out the meaning of the word in this context because I already knew the rules of blackjack as a game. I am much more familiar with the term “face card” to refer to a jack, queen or king card.
A similar change was made to the Go track for this concept exercise at Make it clear what a figure is
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If you want to open up separate track-specific threads for discussion, Crystal and Java both have this exercise and also call it a “figure card”.
I’m curious as to why this exercise is not in the problem-specifications repo if it is shared among several tracks.
The problem-specifications repo contains canonical test case data for practice exercises that tracks can use to implement those exercises., but BlackJack is instead a concept exercise. Concept exercises are track-specific because they’re tied to a concept from that track’s syllabus. A track can freely adapt an existing concept exercise from another track, but that doesn’t involve the problem-specifications repo at all.
Good explanation. Thanks
but that doesn’t involve the problem-specifications repo at all.
Though it also does not preclude it. They might be used for a concept exercise, if that track maintainer determines that it fits well. (No immediate example to show, though.)
Gigasecond Anniversary in Common Lisp on Exercism comes to mind as a concept exercise that was originally a practice exercise (gigasecond). The gigasecond-anniversary tests were taken from the deprecated gigasecond implementation, which itself predates the canonical test data for the exercise in the problem-specs repo.
Of course a track can also implement a practice exercise that isn’t in the problem specifications. A few tracks added Resistor Color Expert as an fourth Resistor Color exercise, and Ballerina has several practice exercises they’ve created themselves.
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This is an exercise that has a “flavor” that differs as well, depending on the student and the track. The gigasecond for me focuses on the base unit of “second” and so is suitable (though overly large) for other units other than time. I have spent some energy protecting it from being forced to be only usable for time or based on a different class such as Date.