Add hints to some exercises

[ErikSchierboom]

@abo64 added this issue to the Scala track, which I thought was a brilliant plan. I'm just gonna literally copy-and-paste that issue's text:

Most exercises have their own favorable solutions and characteristic pitfalls.
To give people some guidance and avoid writing repetitive or similar code comments again and again
we should add a HINTS.md file to any exercise where it makes sense.

Especially the first couple of exercises should have such a file to assist beginners.
Another case is exercises dealing with special features of the language like option or async.

We should make a list of exercises for which some hints can be added. Of course, the first exercises should be more hint-heavy than the latter, although even for advanced exercises hints can be very useful. One example of this are the text parsing exercises, where we could guide people to using Sprache.

[ErikSchierboom]

• accumulate (extension method docs)
• allergies (bitwise operations)
• alphametics (hint to non brute-force algorithm (see example); link to Sprache text parsing library
• bank-account (link to how to deal with concurrency)
• beer-song (hint to not encoding the structure (see example)
• clock (link to IEquatable docs)
• custom-set (link to IEquatable docs)
• difference-of-squares (link to LINQ docs)
• diffie-hellman (link to BigInteger docs)
• food-chain (hint to not encoding the structure (see example)
• forth (link to Sprache text parsing library)
• hangman (link to events docs)
• house (hint to not encoding the structure (see example)
• list-ops (link to Func docs)
• nth-prime (link to lazy sequences (see example)
• nucleotide-count (link to IDictionary<TKey, TValue> documentation)
• palindrome-products (link to tuple documentation)
• proverb (hint to non encoding the structure (see example)
• roman-numerals (extension method docs)
• saddle-points (link to tuple documentation)
• sgf-parsing (link to Sprache text parsing library)
• simple-linked-list (link to IEnumerable docs)
• sublist (link to IComparable docs)
• sum-of-multiples (LINQ docs)
• twelve-days (hint to non encoding the structure (see example)
• variable-length-quantity (link to bitwise operators)
• word-search (link to tuple documentation)
• wordy (link to Sprache text parsing library)
• zebra-puzzle (link to how to use lazy sequences, to improve performance)
• zipper (link to how to deal with custom equality)

[GalaDe]

Hi @ErikSchierboom, I would like to work on this ticket. As I understood correctly, we just need to create for each of the above exercises HINTS. md files, right?

[ErikSchierboom]

Correct! You can check some of the existing Hints.md files to see how they are structured. It is probably best to send one PR per Hints.md file. If you have any questions, just ask.

[GalaDe]

@ErikSchierboom Sounds Good!

[robkeim]

Thanks for pulling this together @ErikSchierboom!

[GalaDe]

Hi @ErikSchierboom, is it something what you are looking for:

https://github.com/GalaDe/gklikh-hmwk2/blob/master/Hints.md

[ErikSchierboom]

@GalaDe Yeah, that's what I mean! I have two small nits.

1. Perhaps rephrase "This exercise requires you to perform operation with collection of data." a little bit, e.g. to "This exercise requires you to process a collection of data."
2. A space is missing between "LINQ" and "(Language Integrated Query)"

Other than that, this is great! You could add this hint to both the difference-of-squares and sum-of-multiples docs and send it as a PR. By the way, the accumulate exercise also had the LINQ hint listed, but that should actually be a link to a page about extension methods.

[GalaDe]

@ErikSchierboom, you want me to use this link for difference-of-squares, sum-of-multiples and accumulate instead of the link which was used in my example? Or just for accumulate?

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us//library/bb383977.aspx

[ErikSchierboom]

@GalaDe Just for accumulate please.

[GalaDe]

@ErikSchierboom Ok, most of them will be done today. I will upload them to the right repository this time:)

[jmbradnan]

@GalaDe I was also thinking of picking some of these up - which ones are candidates for me to work on (if any?) Not sure if you have done all of them or just a subset.

[GalaDe]

@ErikSchierboom, all of them are completed:

accumulate (extension method docs)
allergies (bitwise operations)
alphametics (hint to non brute-force algorithm (see example); link to Sprache text parsing library
bank-account (link to how to deal with concurrency)
beer-song (hint to not encoding the structure (see example)
clock (link to IEquatable docs)
custom-set (link to IEquatable docs)
difference-of-squares (link to LINQ docs)
diffie-hellman (link to BigInteger docs)
food-chain (hint to not encoding the structure (see example)
forth (link to Sprache text parsing library)
hangman (link to events docs)
sgf-parsing (link to Sprache text parsing library)
simple-linked-list (link to IEnumerable docs)
sublist (link to IComparable docs)
sum-of-multiples (LINQ docs)
twelve-days (hint to non encoding the structure (see example)
variable-length-quantity (link to bitwise operators)
wordy (link to Sprache text parsing library)

[GalaDe]

@ErikSchierboom pull request created. By the way, why I can't mark checkboxes with the complete exercises in your post?

[ErikSchierboom]

@GalaDe You can't check the checkboxes as you are not a maintainer of this repository, hence you don't have the rights.

[GalaDe]

Here is the list which has to be done:

list-ops (link to Func docs)
nth-prime (link to lazy sequences (see example)
nucleotide-count (link to IDictionary<TKey, TValue> documentation)
palindrome-products (link to tuple documentation)
proverb (hint to non encoding the structure (see example)
saddle-points (link to tuple documentation)
word-search (link to tuple documentation)
zebra-puzzle (link to how to use lazy sequences, to improve performance)
zipper (link to how to deal with custom equality)

Unfortunately, I will not be able to complete them until March 28th. @jmbradnan, do you wanna work on them?

[ErikSchierboom]

@GalaDe I've updated the list and added "(in progress)" for the HINTS you have submitted in your PR. Once that PR is merged, I'll check them in the list. Thanks for the great work!

[jmbradnan]

yes I will take a look at these.

[jmbradnan]

I am using other examples to hopefully get the formatting right, if there is a guideline for how to mark up the text for proper rendering let me know.

[jmbradnan]

It looks like the hint for the proverb exercise is for the beer-song exercise. I checked the HINTS file in the xfsharp/exercizes and it also contains the beer-song hint, is this an error? Doesn't seem like it is the right hint for that exercise

[ErikSchierboom]

@jmbradnan No that is not an error, the hints are actually the same, as the exercises are very similar.

[GalaDe]

Hi @ErikSchierboom! I'm back:) Do you still need help with this ticket?

[ErikSchierboom]

I'd love some help 😀

[jmbradnan]

Hey folks, getting back online after spring break, I think the ones that still remain are:

list-ops (link to Func docs)
nucleotide-count (link to IDictionary<TKey, TValue> documentation)
palindrome-products (link to tuple documentation)
saddle-points (link to tuple documentation)
zebra-puzzle (link to how to use lazy sequences, to improve performance)
zipper (link to how to deal with custom equality)

Does that look right? Happy to help as well.

[ErikSchierboom]

@jmbradnan sounds good. Perhaps you and @GalaDe can divide them amongst yourselves?

[jmbradnan]

sounds good to me @ErikSchierboom @GalaDe I am going to look at list-ops problem next.

[jmbradnan]

scratch that, it looks like list-ops already has a HINTS.md file. All of the others I list above do need HINTS, so I will look at next one in list ->nucleotide-count

[jmbradnan]

btw, @ErikSchierboom there is a small typo in the HINTS for list-ops, I am going to just fix this and submit

[GalaDe]

Hi @jmbradnan, I will work on these three today:

sum-of-multiples (LINQ docs)
zebra-puzzle (link to how to use lazy sequences, to improve performance)
zipper (link to how to deal with custom equality)

[GalaDe]

Hi @ErikSchierboom, could you please mark nucleotide-count exercise and word-search as completed.

[ErikSchierboom]

@GalaDe Sure, forgot about that. I've just updated the list.

[GalaDe]

@ErikSchierboom, Thank you!

[jmbradnan]

ok @GalaDe, I think that means these remain:
house
palindrome-products (link to tuple documentation)
saddle-points (link to tuple documentation)

I am going to look at palindrome-products first.

[GalaDe]

@jmbradnan If you haven't started working on the house and saddle-points hints I can take them.

[jmbradnan]

@GalaDe yes please do - school just starting for me so busy for next few days.

[GalaDe]

@jmbradnan Sounds good! Good luck with school!

[GalaDe]

@ErikSchierboom, I guess we can close this ticket:)

[ErikSchierboom]

With huge thanks to @jmbradnan and @GalaDe, this issue can now be closed! Thanks a lot!

[GalaDe]

Ehyyyyy!!!!!