Exercise order?

[bjmaynard01]

Looking through the Go exercises, I noticed that Hello World is number 4 on the list. Is there a reason why it would be after what I would consider to be much more difficult exercises?

[tleen]

It is in preparation (#825) for the next version of Exercism. The tracks will no longer be linear but look more like a tree. Completing certain exercises will open up other ones for completion. You won't have to do all the exercises in order any more. So the JSON ordering does not really matter much only for the core exercises core == true && unlocked_by == null. Any exercise with core == false && unlocked_by == null is a bonus exercise which is available at the start so users have options. In our case that would be those first three exercises before hello-world. It can be complicated to look at, so there are handy visualizers! Here is what it looks like currently (with the exercise difficulty):

Go
==

core
----
├─ hello-world [1]
│  └─ space-age [2]
│
├─ two-fer [1]
│  ├─ leap [1]
│  │  └─ triangle [3]
│  └─ proverb [4]
│
├─ hamming [1]
│  ├─ rna-transcription [2]
│  ├─ nucleotide-count [2]
│  └─ grep [4]
│
├─ raindrops [1]
│  ├─ accumulate [1]
│  │  └─ strain [2]
│  └─ roman-numerals [2]
│
├─ scrabble-score [1]
│  ├─ etl [1]
│  └─ protein-translation [3]
│
├─ isogram [2]
│  ├─ reverse-string [2]
│  ├─ pangram [2]
│  ├─ anagram [3]
│  ├─ word-count [3]
│  └─ run-length-encoding [4]
│
├─ difference-of-squares [2]
│  ├─ sum-of-multiples [5]
│  ├─ pythagorean-triplet [5]
│  ├─ largest-series-product [3]
│  ├─ nth-prime [3]
│  └─ isbn-verifier [2]
│
├─ luhn [2]
│  ├─ crypto-square [3]
│  ├─ atbash-cipher [3]
│  ├─ diffie-hellman [5]
│  ├─ simple-cipher [3]
│  └─ rotational-cipher [2]
│
├─ grains [2]
│  ├─ secret-handshake [5]
│  ├─ sieve [3]
│  ├─ perfect-numbers [4]
│  ├─ allergies [4]
│  ├─ all-your-base [3]
│  └─ variable-length-quantity [5]
│
├─ clock [3]
│  ├─ phone-number [3]
│  │  └─ pig-latin [4]
│  ├─ prime-factors [3]
│  │  └─ armstrong-numbers [3]
│  └─ meetup [3]
│
├─ parallel-letter-frequency [3]
│  └─ series [3]
│
├─ tree-building [3]
│  ├─ bracket-push [7]
│  ├─ binary-search [5]
│  │  ├─ binary-search-tree [5]
│  │  └─ two-bucket [5]
│  ├─ pov [7]
│  ├─ ledger [4]
│  │  └─ rail-fence-cipher [4]
│
├─ robot-name [3]
│  ├─ palindrome-products [6]
│  ├─ say [7]
│  └─ wordy [3]
│
├─ tournament [3]
│  ├─ pascals-triangle [4]
│  ├─ diamond [4]
│  ├─ ocr-numbers [7]
│  ├─ kindergarten-garden [3]
│  ├─ poker [5]
│  │  └─ bowling [5]
│  └─ rectangles [4]
│
├─ twelve-days [4]
│  ├─ house [4]
│  ├─ food-chain [4]
│  └─ beer-song [3]
│
├─ matrix [4]
│  ├─ sublist [3]
│  ├─ queen-attack [5]
│  ├─ transpose [5]
│  ├─ saddle-points [5]
│  ├─ minesweeper [5]
│  │  └─ connect [9]
│  ├─ word-search [4]
│  └─ spiral-matrix [4]
│
├─ error-handling [5]
│  ├─ flatten-array [3]
│  │  ├─ book-store [8]
│  │  ├─ dominoes [4]
│  │  └─ alphametics [5]
│  ├─ circular-buffer [5]
│  ├─ custom-set [4]
│  └─ simple-linked-list [4]
│
├─ bank-account [4]
│  ├─ paasio [5]
│  ├─ react [9]
│  ├─ grade-school [5]
│  ├─ robot-simulator [6]
│  ├─ forth [8]
│  ├─ change [5]
│  └─ zebra-puzzle [6]

bonus
-----
gigasecond [1]
bob [2]
acronym [3]
collatz-conjecture [1]

You know for completeness sake collatz-conjecture should probably be up there too. @bjmaynard01 is that something you may be interested in opening a PR for?

[bjmaynard01]

Thank you, this explains it. I wish I had the skill set necessary to assist, I'm only just getting started with exercism, let alone Go. Appreciate the in-depth response though.

[tleen]

The modifications of that file are in JSON so you may be able to give it a try. Everyone starts somewhere :smile:! If you do want to reorder you can do it via a PR and reference this, i'll close it for now.

[hilary]

Closing this issue per @tleen 's comment