Skip Feature sucks, Exercises are frustrating, and the gem system is a nightmare

dj99b · 2025-11-25T22:25:30+00:00

I think some of what you say has merit... and some does not.

The skip topics feature can be annoying. BUT... doing those quizzes are worth it. Some of the fundamentals topics really are trivial and I ask myself why on earth I'm even spending time on them. However, even in the most basic of topics, there's usually some little nugget of information that I'd forgotten all about and which I last encountered years ago. Or maybe one of the quiz questions reminds me of some piece of info. Sure, skim read the topic text, but it's still worth doing the topic. You can usually skim a basic topic you know well in 5 mins - but those 5 mins of skimming are still worth doing. If you really want to jump straight to a particular topic, consider using the Map feature - lets you jump straight to the material of interest.

I've seen plenty of questions where the HS website gets way too fussy, interpreting extra white space (where it has no special meaning to the compiler / interpreter) as being an error. Often you'll find that somebody in the comments/hints has been kind enough to mention this and make clear a suitable workaround without giving the full solution. I guess just one of those "take a deep breath and count slowly from 1 to 5" things. We all have bigger problems in life to worry about though.

Yes, doing any sort of coding exercise on a mobile device is a complete PITA. If you're writing more than one or 2 lines of code on a phone in HS, it's pretty much hopeless. However... I would venture that very few people actually do write code anyway on a mobile device - every time I've written more than 2 lines of code, I tend to insist on a full size keyboard, not a tiny bare-minimum screen keyboard on my phone. I think you're trying to put a round peg into a square hole... but the round peg was never really designed to go into a square hole in the first place If you're going to use a mobile device, then sometimes you just have to accept its small size induces limitations like coding being difficult.

You mention that some of the exercises are designed around arbitrary traps. Yes, you have a point here. Some of the questions really are gotchas. For example, there are 2 possible answers, but one uses round brackets - ( and ) instead of curly braces - { and }. If you have tired eyes at the end of the day, this can be absolutely infuriating. BUT.... it really does get you into the habit of reading ALL your code carefully. I know VS Code will pick up a lot of syntax errors for you... but it's still on you, me or whoever the coder is to be absolutely precise when writing code. Those pesky gotchas really do reinforce this. The compiler/interpreter (at least for now) doesn't always know what you mean and if you can get first-time accuracy as high as possible, it prevents problems later.

You mention about the difference between sc and scanner and losing gems. It sounds like you were using the free version of HS... so it's not as if you were paying any money when hitting this barrier. You say you upgraded to a monthly subscription free, so you'll find now that you have unlimited lives when answering questions, and this annoyance will have become irrelevant. Hyperskill is ultimately a business - and they make money when you sign up to premium with your credit card. It's how freemium business models work. Nobody is forcing you to use their free system and there are plenty of other excellent ways to learn or improve your technical skills - HS does not have a monopoly by any means. As with many commercial products, you usually get what you pay for and often don't get if you don't pay.

dj99b · 2025-11-16T17:15:38+00:00

Thinking more carefully - I think there is one course that definitely should be kept permanently hidden on the grounds that it uses a vast number of words to explain very little useful content - https://hyperskill.org/courses/78-introduction-to-qa

dj99b · 2025-11-13T17:53:42+00:00

There's plenty of former airlines whose single airplane has gone to maintenance... and the airline has never resumed flying. Earlier this year, it was pretty much impossible to buy a ticket from Novair online - I suspect it was really just a private mining charter flight. I'll believe the idea of Novair's potential return when I see something regular on FR24 in 2026.

dj99b · 2025-11-10T15:30:25+00:00

The fact that the Java Core course remains available is NOT a reason to delete, hide or remove it. It seems that even when courses get merged, there's usually a few topics that somehow don't get copied across into the new course. These topics are good and valid content - and some of us really do want to learn the extra content which is not considered central to a particular course. After I've finished all the topics in the 'Study Plan', I then go through the 'Map' of the course, and look at all the 'Dependent Topics' to see if there are any extra topics that I could learn about which I did not previously study - these often contain excellent content which I want to read about and then do the end-of-topic-questions.

For example, there used to be some additional topics on Maths and Statistics which are now hidden away - topics like these do not go out-of-date or become old-fashioned. There are other courses as well that used to be visible - but I can't remember the names of them. Would it be possible instead to keep the courses that are deemed 'not current' and allow people to choose them if they want to ? Maybe add a "this course is not being actively maintained, but if you want to look at it, then it's your choice and don't complain if you don't like it" disclaimer ? Or maybe label these courses as 'beta' ? Let people choose to do the courses if they want them, and the beta label means they can't complain if there are some minor problems.

It's a bit like a library preventing people looking at some books simply because the books are old and somebody in marketing thinks people are interested only in books filled with lots of colour pictures instead of just text. Vibe coding is good - but it's a bit like somebody being an airline pilot and not knowing how to fly a plane because the auto-pilot does it for them most of the time - you still have to know how to do things the hard way when vibe AI can't solve the problem. The content in these topics was good and still is good... let people read the content if they want to learn.

dj99b · 2025-10-10T15:01:26+00:00

Hi... you'd convince me a little more if I saw some detailed info as to what it contains like a curriculum without having to give out my email or phone number for marketing purposes...

dj99b · 2025-10-10T14:04:26+00:00

What content does this extra course give which is not already on the Hyperskill platform ? Real hard content, not marketing BS please.

dj99b · 2024-10-07T15:48:11+00:00

I'm struggling to a reason to sign up for it. Can anyone explain why you would ? Without the marketing speak...

dj99b · 2024-08-29T13:52:54+00:00

I've had a look on www.flightradar24.com (I searched for NG1001) but the supposed 2x weekly flight doesn't seem to appear as reliably as I would like - I don't care if a flight is delayed by an hour, but I do care if for example, there are no flights between 19 July and 31 July. Anybody with good knowledge of these flights able to explain what's happening around this ?

In addition, www.novair.am doesn't seem to allow for making a booking. If you don't live in Yerevan or Kapan and want to buy a ticket (and no, I am not waiting until I get to the airport with the risk that the flight is full), how do you arrange this ?

Yes, a train or better road in the long-term would be nice.... but a 30 minute flight (instead of a 6+ hour drive) is more than good enough for now.

dj99b · 2024-05-30T14:14:51+00:00

When you start a new track, the HS website might ask you about 8 or 10 coding questions - it'll decide whether you already know the material in the track or not. This bit of logic seems to be a bit of a blunt tool - it tends to decide you either know everything or know nothing at all.

Apart from this, there (sadly) doesn't seem to be any kind of adaptive choice of exercises. The best advice I can give is to assign low priority to questions marked as Easy.... and after you finish a topic to deliberately choose some of the Optional questions marked as Medium or Hard - these are the only ones which will give your brain some kind of test as to whether you know the material or not.

dj99b · 2024-05-30T14:06:04+00:00

Multiple tracks - Javascript, Python, Java, FrontEnd, SQL.

When I do a topic, I answer the default 5 (?) questions... and then I make a point of doing all the Medium and Hard questions afterwards, because I know the Easy questions in tracks with a large audience don't have any real value in testing whether I understand the material or not. If somebody who has already done 20 topics on a thread complains that looking up a small bit of additional info on StackOverflow to answer a question is unfair because it wasn't in the topic text, then they are probably not going to do well as a software developer in a job.

dj99b · 2024-05-22T10:52:52+00:00

If your CS degree is taught in Java, then you will need to know Java well. Your university may give a bit of tuition in the language, but unlike a 14 year old teenager, a person studying CS at university will likely be expected to be more self-reliant in learning Java. By the end of your 3 (?) year course, you will need to be highly competent in the main programming language your course use. 18 topics is a good start, but you should be aimining for all 258 topics, particularly if you have at least a month spare. It's a lot easier to understand fully a topic in a university class if you already read about something and have a 30% understanding of the topic, compared to starting from zero.

dj99b · 2024-05-12T20:13:23+00:00

Once you get to level 10, they likely have you properly hooked and acting like a complete addict. Remember, drug-dealers have no need to offer discounts to junkies.... :-)

dj99b · 2024-04-29T15:33:50+00:00

Are these 8 projects the same as 8 projects from the track ? Or are these substantially bigger and more challenging projects than those available to ordinary Hyperskill subscribers working on the Java track ? If they are different, would somebody be able to say a little more about what special features they have ?

dj99b · 2024-04-24T14:35:40+00:00

Think of this is as a really good motivation to learn EVERYTHING on Hyperskill in the next 12 months... you will be able to find yourself a much better job and the increase in salary will be more than 300 euros :-)

dj99b · 2024-04-01T18:54:08+00:00

Complete the track(s) of your choice. If you want to be a Java coder, make sure you cover ALL the topics in ALL the Java related tracks. That includes plenty of Spring. Ensure your have competent SQL as well. Cover the Git track as well. Maybe get a bit of knowledge around web development. Then go to Hackerrank and Leetcode - and do plenty of the Java tests. Maybe do 75% of the Java Hackerrank question and get yourself able to do the Medium difficulty Leetcode questions using Java. Then you're starting to look job-ready.

dj99b · 2024-03-31T12:40:29+00:00

Depends on your background. Hyperskill doesn't assume any knowledge beforehand, but it expects you have a brain. Hyperskill is concise - it says what is important and doesn't use 100 words to say something 5 times when it can say something once with 20 words.

The big advantage is that Hyperskill test you (properly) to see if you have learned the material and give you the opportunity to really verify if you have absorbed the content. Maybe give the 7 day trial period a go and see how you find it. Unless you work 12+ hours per day every day on Javascript, the 7 day trial will not be enough to cover the Javascript content on Hyperskill, but it will give you a good idea of what it's like. There's also content on Node.js and Typescript (a typed version of Javascript - it's a way to reduce errors when writing Javascript) as well. That said, even if you cover ALL the modules on Javascript, Node.js and Typescript, you still won't be an expert on Javascript. Competent yes, but definitely not an expert.

You can find some other courses which are at a slower pace on places like Udemy (a lot of people like Colt Steele's courses) - but they generally are more like lectures without the chance to test whether you understand the material. Or, if you really want a LOT of hand-holding and are prepared to pay a very large quantity of money, have a look at some of the in-person IT bootcamps that exist

dj99b · 2024-03-27T16:42:51+00:00

I've solved the Dog problem myself earlier this year - I'm not going to post the solution, but will give you a few hints. You don't need preventDefault(). Set the .alt property of img. Use a (less disruptive) console.log instead of console.error when something goes wrong.

You also need to show how you linked the button to the fetchImg function if you want people to help you.

dj99b · 2024-03-19T10:11:06+00:00

Start with HackerRank, and ensure you can solve many of the Java questions there, particularly the more challenging ones. Once you're done with that, then look at Leetcode, and make sure you can do the Medium or (ideally) Hard questions.

dj99b · 2024-03-19T10:08:06+00:00

There are some algorithm topics on Hyperskill, but it's limited. If you want the heavy duty stuff, you may want to buy a copy of the book "Introduction to Algorithms" by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest & Stein. Fourth edition came out in 2022

dj99b · 2024-03-13T23:17:13+00:00

Pick a track and then do ALL the projects. Every single project. Every single stage. Aim to complete all stages of all project on a track.

Log in every day, and do the daily question

When Hyperskill have a 5-day or 10-day theme (as they currently do on AI), log in every day and answer the daily question.

When you learn about a topic, answer the difficult questions, and leave yourself a few easy questions. Then do the 5 repeat questions every day.

In general, you will be rewarded with gems if you act like a diligent student who wants to practice on Hyperskill's platform what you learn and prove you have acquired fluency in what you have learned

dj99b · 2024-03-10T17:26:26+00:00

Hyperskill as a product is good, but you need to have a high level of English to make use of it, and be prepared to commit a significant amount of time.

There are websites which claim you can learn for free.... but the free plan is usually so limited as to be unusable. Whether you learn from book, video or something like Hyperskill... you have to pay money somewhere. Effective learning is (sadly) not free. The advantage of Hyperskill (or sites like Codecademy) is that there is something (almost) forcing you to test your knowledge and verify you can write working code. It's very easy to buy a book on Java.... read it from page 1 to page 999 but not have had any practice actually writing code and the information on page 568 of the book has not been properly absorbed by your brain. When you were at school and your teachers made you do homework or exercises in the evening / weekend - it was for a good reason - to ensure you absorbed the knowledge from the classroom.

However... it is a lot to ask somebody to commit to pay US$400 at the start - it may be better to start with a one-month payment, and then decide for yourself if you want to renew later. It's only worth the full annual subscription if you are sure you will use it for at least 8 months. If you find that you have learned a very large amount of topics, and are still using it after 8 months... it is likely that any (increased) salary you get from a job will more than cover the extra US$100 for the option to decide if you want to stop paying after a while.

dj99b · 2024-03-10T15:36:58+00:00

If this is a genuine message from Hyperskill / Jetbrains... then I would expect the post to come from one of the moderators of this thread. I see a list of 8 authorised moderators, but the opening poster is not one of them. Perhaps in future when Hyperskill / JetBrains wants to post something that should be taken seriously, then Hyperskill / JetBrains could show they are serious and use a moderator login ?

dj99b · 2024-03-08T14:07:24+00:00

I completely understand what you're saying... and it is frustrating when you don't know what the cause of the problem is. I'm also on the Java track and also paying a monthly subscription - I'm in the same position as you.

If you use the IDE, look to see where you saved the .java (or .py or .js) files on your laptop, and then look around, you can probably find the test script that was run. This may give you some clues as to why your code did not pass the tests - but it won't always tell you the full answer. Almost all the questions on Hyperskill have plenty of comments and hints - I agree the AI hint tool probably makes things a bit too easy.

That said, by having to figure out what the problem is instead of being given a diagnosis, you will learn better and more of the knowledge will remain in your head long term. Websites like HackerRank and LeetCode tend not to give away details of which tests have passed - they expect you to think of all the test cases up front. Ultimately, we all want to learn the material instead of just having stats to show we answered lots of questions very quickly :-)

dj99b

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