Good day for all. I am working on python and in the syllabus a lot of exercises are blocked. In my case is blocked the loops topic onwards, but in the overview I can to access to a pair of exercises: Pascal triangle and Markdown.
Could you share a screenshot or two to show what exactly you mean where please? Thanks :)
On the Python track, pascal's triangle has the following prerequisites:
basics,conditionals,lists, andnumbers.
…So having it unlocked at this stage is correct. Whether or not we should add loops and other topics as a prerequisite to this exercise is another question. 
For markdown, I am seeing the following for prerequisites:
lists,string-methods
…So this is also correct behavior based on prerequisites. We would have put regular expressions in as a prerequisite here, but since we have yet to make a regular expression concept exercise, that would have the effect of making the markdown exercise un-doable until we launched a regular expression concept exercise.
I am open to ideas – what other concepts/exercises do you think need to be added to ensure that these exercises aren’t unlocked in learning mode too early? Should we be locking down anything that’s not connected to the syllabus tree initially?
In this first image I have the two problems Pascal Triangle and Markdown in progress:
in this other image looks blocked all onward from loops topic:
we can look that those problems are inaccessible.
Hi @BethanyG .
Some suggestions about the syllabus:
The “Resistor Color Duo” is unblocked when we complete the “Resistor Color Expert” or “Chaitanas Colossal Coaster”, I don’t sure what of them, I think that isn’t logic. The unlock path will be “Resistor Color”, “Resistor Color Duo”, “Resistor Color Trio”, and “Resistor Color Expert”.
I find other similar situations like problems where we need loops but loops are ten lessons after or problems for manage list before the lesson of list. I know that the persons here aren’t beginners in programming but the organization of the syllabus isn’t look fine by situations like I saw before.
That is indeed illogical, and I will take look & see if I can smooth out that requirement chain so that it makes more sense. 
This one is a bit harder. Not every student will choose to solve a practice problem in the same way, so it is difficult to make a “requires” judgement with some (not all!) problems.
For example, a student could choose tuples or array.array instead of lists, or recursion, generator expressions, comprehensions, map() or functools.reduce() as opposed to direct loops.
The practice exercises (those not tied directly to concepts) predate the syllabus, and weren’t specifically designed to practice just one concept at a time. In fact, many were designed around classic games or algorithms. Many were also designed to provoke decisions like what optimal data structure to use or which code is more readable or performant.
All that said, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to get the unlocking logic in better shape!
To that end, I would be really thankful if you had the time/energy to note where things are badly out of order for you, and we can work on a (perhaps) more sensible re-ordering? I think it is probably going to take multiple passes. (it is also ok to to say no to this)
One thing to note: There are difficulty levels for exercises as well.
The current track ordering goes from Concept Exercises → difficulty 1 → difficulty 2 → difficulty 3 … and so on, up to difficulty 9 (we don’t have any exercises rated 10).
So you will see that reflected in the “grid” view - the concept exercises are first, followed by each “level”. However, the Syllabus is a bit different - each concept has a number of linked practice exercises that “practice” that concept. For those, we chose a spectrum of difficulty, so it is possible to have level 3 exercises unlocked for a given concept, even early in the Syllabus tree. We’ve tried not to link really difficult exercises, but they are certainly not all level one.
Whew! 
I hope that wasn’t too long a reply! Thanks for reading.
Hi @BethanyG.
Ho, ho, ho. I ended to read the response until the end 
.
I understand your point.
The “isn’t logic” expression I hope isn’t misunderstand, this expression comes from I already solved the same exercises in other track. Obviously I am learning here and I don’t know, for that reason, all the paths to resolve an exercise. In fact an exercise is possible to resolve in a high many manners.
I must to insist in the work here is of high quality and my intention is to contribute from some very personal point of view. But It isn’t a destructive opinion, all the contrary.
My English isn’t the better and I write some ideas that could be read with other sense of I really want to express. I apologize for it.
I see this as you pointing out where things don’t make sense to you, based on working through the track for the first time, and I think that’s very valuable. Since I’ve looked at this regularly for a long time, I can no longer see as many areas that “don’t make sense” - you can see those – so thank you for your comments.
Thank you for that! And I don’t think your opinions are destructive. In fact, I would like to hear more comments/opinions as you progress further in the track. Especially when things don’t make sense in relation to the Syllabus, which is a work in progress. There are a lot of topics missing, and a lot of exercises that need to be created.
Please don’t feel like you have to apologize. If I misunderstand, you can always correct me - and if I don’t know what you are talking about, I will ask.
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@iHiD - Is it still possible to require a practice exercise as a prerequisite for another practice exercise, or is that “prerequisite” key now reserved only for concepts?
As I work through this feedback, it feels easiest to me to say, require that a student complete resistor-color → resistor-color-duo → resistor-color-trio → resistor-color-expert, rather than determine which concepts are required, since the whole “resistor” progression is essentially about handling more complexity but with the same “tools” of loops, lists, strings, and numbers.
I also have the delemma of what to do when a student chooses to not be in learning mode. Will that remove all prerequisites? Should I be more careful with my practice exercise ordering in that case? Right now, practice exercises are grouped by difficulty rating, but I’ve not paid as much attention to the progression within each difficulty group.
No it’s not. It’s reserved for Concept Exercises.
You might suggest it during mentoring. Or even in the description state that it is recommended to do X and Y before doing Z.
Hi @BethanyG
I do not know about the first option. But if the student elect not to be in learning mode he can to elect what path to run. Thus if he like only to resolve the problems rated like hard, he could do.
On the other hand, if the exercise have a clue concept it must be before that the exercise or exercises that need of it concept. Inside of exercises that deep in a concept will be convenient and desirable that they be ordered for complexity.
From my point of view could be two criteria: concepts like say @iHiD and complexity, and like say @kopt, the space to suggest those organization could be the mentoring space.
Well, a personal inquire is: What about of concept of Concept?, it refers to “control structures” or “loops” or could be “lists” or “strings”… sorry it comes from my ignorance in this area. And this must be clear for those mentors like me when we collaborate in this role.
I am looking the Syllabus and is more like the last option: numbers, lists, lists methods, string, string methods, numbers, etc.