Using Intervee.io, we created a simple challenge that requests solvers to print “Hello World” without using the letter W in the command.
The challenge was written mostly for beginners and was combined with a virtual assistant that accompanied the solvers during the solution, so solvers without previous experience could also solve it and learn a few new tricks.
In this post, we will share interesting statistics and solutions.
Link to the challenge: https://platform.intervee.io/challengeinfocard/bash_world
It seems that most of the users (148-64 = 84) that didn’t solve it, were without previous experience in Linux.
This challenge was difficult for juniors but should be easy for solvers with 2+ year of experience (the solvers were asked about their experience, so some of the statistics here are based on their answers).
The 5 best shortest solutions:
echo hello vorld | tr [u-x] [v-y]
The command tr replaces u,v,w,x by v,w,y,z (u->v, v->w, w>y,x>z). So vorld is replaced with world.
echo "aGVsbG8gd29ybGQK" | base64 -d
The value aGVsbG8gd29ybGQK is Hello World in base64. You can check it here: https://www.base64decode.org/
printf 'Hello, \x77orld!\n'
This is the recommended solution. The virtual assistant advised the solvers to use printf if they got stuck for a long time.
echo "Hello $(date|cut -c 1)orld"
A cool solution that works only on Wednesday.
</dev/null awk 'BEGIN {print "hello \167orld";}'
Nice trick with awk.
echo -e 'hello \x57orld'
Juniors (0-2 years of experience) vs Seniors (2+):
Survey:
The options are : bad, neutral or good.
All juniors and most of the seniors rated the challenge as Good. Some seniors rated neutral. No one rated it as bad.
Time:
The average solving time for seniors was 6.6 minutes. Juniors 12.3 minutes.
Using Google:
Juniors switched tabs 13 times (on average) during the challenge. Seniors only 7.
Using other tabs like google is a must, and it seems that solvers with more experience did it more efficiently.
Asking for hints:
Juniors asked for hints 2x times compared to Seniors, which makes sense.
New command learned:
Most of the commands (tr, print, based64 -d) were new to the solvers, or at least they needed to use google before using those commands. I was not familiar with the tr command.
We did a similar exercise in Python and C, as you can see here:
https://www.intervee.io/2022/07/21/10-ways-to-write-hello-world-in-c/
Bonus – Linux course with a virtual mentor – coming soon.
The challenge was part of a free Linux course with a virtual mentor that we are working on those days.
In the meantime, you can try the virtual mentor in the Python basic course at this link: https://platform.intervee.io/courses
Do you have another unique solution? Let us know 🙂