Closing Thoughts on my Exercism Video Project
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It was August 2, 2022, when I recorded the first video and blogged about my Exercism Elixir video project. I decided to join an upcoming cohort that would be working through the Elixir track on Exercism, a place to learn programming languages via coding challenges. I decided to video record myself working through the exercises, hoping to share the experience with others.
And now it’s all done! I posted my final “Learning Exercise” video on October 19, 2022. I unlocked the full Elixir syllabus and consider the project closed (for now).
Not overlooking an opportunity to recap the project, I figure I’ll capture a few thoughts to celebrate.
First, it feels incredible to FINISH something. I’ve had many project stall or otherwise end in a disappointing manner. Being able to see this through was very fulfilling.
I chose the project scope with meaningful intent. I wanted something more than a weekend but not longer than a few months. Technically this took about ten weeks with some vacation and moving distractions mixed in. It turned out to be a pretty good length of time.
The cohort was ok. We had a shared Discord server and encouraged daily check-ins and questions. People did help each other, but I feel like there was a lost opportunity to get more face time events. I attended a few video meetings, but they were more presentations than socializing. It’s a shame I didn’t make a stronger connection with anyone. Hard to do that over text-only chat. In the end, they did post a survey, and I recall sharing some suggestions. With luck, they will continue to mature the cohort idea and offer other languages.
Recording the videos was more stressful than expected. A handful of exercises stumped me, and the sessions would go long. Even the simple sessions went pretty long. I would not expect many people to sit through those unless they were notably stuck on an issue and found the video matching an exercise title. I know at least one person who did; he mentioned he recognized me during a Dockyard Academy call and shared as much. That was pretty cool.
As I consider more video content, I must condense the value better. If I do record longer sessions (or streams?) I should break out clips as the primary form of sharing and less so the full archive.
For now, I consider the project closed and will focus on other things. I could see myself coming back to work on more exercises someday. There are a ton. I completed 40 of them to unlock the syllabus, and there are still 116 available. My hat off to anyone who finishes all of them.
About the Author. Mike Zornek is a developer and teacher focusing on product design and development with a heavy focus on Elixir and LiveView. In between his projects, Mike helps other teams through consulting. During off hours, he enjoyed watching Phillies baseball and playing relaxing video games.
Hopefully, you found interest in my scribbles. If you have commentary or a response, I'd love to hear it.