Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Exercism VS Vim

Compare Exercism VS Vim and see what are their differences

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Exercism logo Exercism

Download and solve practice problems in over 30 different languages.

Vim logo Vim

Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing
  • Exercism Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-28
  • Vim Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-23

Exercism features and specs

  • Free Access
    Exercism provides free access to a wide range of coding exercises and learning resources, making it accessible to everyone regardless of their financial situation.
  • Mentorship
    Offers personalized mentorship from experienced developers who can provide feedback and guidance on your code submissions.
  • Wide Variety of Languages
    Supports numerous programming languages, which allows users to learn and practice coding in multiple languages.
  • Structured Learning Tracks
    Organizes exercises into structured tracks, guiding learners through progressively challenging problems in a logical order.
  • Community Support
    Has an active community forum where users can discuss problems, share insights, and ask for help.
  • Open Source Contributions
    Encourages contributions to the platform itself, offering an opportunity for users to give back and improve the resources available to others.
  • Focus on Clean Code
    Emphasizes writing clean, well-documented code, which is beneficial for developing best practices.

Possible disadvantages of Exercism

  • Variable Mentorship Quality
    The quality of mentorship can vary, as it depends on the availability and expertise of volunteer mentors.
  • Learning Curve
    There can be a steep learning curve for beginners who may find some exercises too challenging without sufficient initial guidance.
  • Limited Interactivity
    Exercises are primarily text-based without interactive or visual learning aids, which might be less engaging for some users.
  • Dependence on Volunteers
    The platform relies heavily on volunteer mentors, which can lead to delays in getting feedback and may affect the consistency of support.
  • Interface Complexity
    Some users find the interface and workflow somewhat complex and unintuitive, particularly for those new to the platform.
  • No Real-Time Collaboration
    Lacks real-time collaboration features, meaning users cannot code together or get instant feedback.
  • Focus on Individual Learning
    The platform predominantly focuses on individual learning rather than collaborative projects, which can be a downside for those looking to develop team-working skills.

Vim features and specs

  • Efficiency
    Once learned, Vim can significantly speed up text editing with its modal editing, keyboard shortcuts, and commands that allow for quick navigation and manipulation of text.
  • Lightweight
    Vim is a very lightweight editor, consuming minimal system resources, making it highly performant even on systems with lower specifications.
  • Customizability
    Vim is highly configurable and extensible through plugins and user-defined settings, allowing users to tailor the editor to their specific needs.
  • Ubiquity
    Vim is available on almost every Unix-like system and even on Windows, making it a ubiquitous tool that you can rely on being available in most environments.
  • Support for Multiple Programming Languages
    Vim supports a wide range of programming languages out of the box and offers syntax highlighting, which can be enhanced through plugins.
  • Powerful Search and Replace
    Vim offers robust searching and replacing functionalities, including support for regular expressions, which can be a powerful tool for developers.

Possible disadvantages of Vim

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Vim's modal editing and extensive set of commands can be daunting for new users, requiring significant time and effort to master.
  • Minimal Default Config
    The default configuration of Vim is quite minimalistic, which may necessitate additional setup and customization to meet modern development needs.
  • Limited GUI
    Vim primarily operates in a terminal, and while there are graphical variants like GVim, they are not as feature-rich or user-friendly as modern GUI editors.
  • Plugin Management
    While Vim is highly extensible, managing and configuring plugins can be cumbersome compared to more modern editors that offer integrated plugin management.
  • Inconsistent Behavior Across Platforms
    There may be inconsistencies in behavior or available features of Vim across different operating systems, which can complicate its use in certain environments.
  • Lack of Integrated Modern Features
    Vim lacks some modern IDE features like integrated debugging, advanced code introspection, and refined autocompletion, which often require third-party plugins to achieve.

Analysis of Exercism

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Exercism is considered good for learning and improving programming skills.

Why this product is good

  • Exercism offers free access to a wide variety of exercises in over 50 different programming languages, catering to both beginners and experienced programmers.
  • The platform provides a unique mentorship model where volunteers review submitted solutions, offering personalized feedback and guidance.
  • The exercises are well-structured, facilitating both practice and mastery of language-specific concepts and problem-solving skills.
  • Exercism encourages learning through doing, promoting an active learning environment which can be more effective compared to passive learning styles.
  • The platform allows for self-paced learning, enabling users to progress at their own speed and revisit topics as needed.

Recommended for

  • Beginner programmers seeking practical coding exercises to reinforce their learning.
  • Intermediate and advanced developers looking to hone their skills or learn new programming languages.
  • Individuals who appreciate personalized feedback and mentorship to improve their coding practices.
  • Students and educators searching for supplementary resources to support coursework or syllabus requirements.
  • Professionals aiming to practice coding interview problems and enhance their problem-solving abilities.

Analysis of Vim

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Vim is a good text editor, especially for users who invest the time to learn its powerful commands and features. Its steep learning curve may be challenging initially, but once mastered, it significantly enhances productivity.

Why this product is good

  • Vim is considered a powerful text editor because of its efficiency and versatility. It offers extensive features, such as syntax highlighting, a robust plugin system, and support for numerous programming languages. Vim is highly configurable, enabling users to customize its environment to fit their needs. It is particularly appreciated for its speed and the ability to perform complex text manipulations using simple commands.

Recommended for

    Vim is recommended for programmers, developers, and system administrators who require a highly efficient and customizable text editing experience. It is especially useful for those who work extensively in terminal environments or need a quick, resource-light text editor for remote systems.

Exercism videos

Learn with Exercism.io

More videos:

  • Review - JavaScript Exercise | Learn JavaScript with Exercism | #0 Setup
  • Review - exercism.io 01 hello-world

Vim videos

What Vim Is and Why You Should Learn It

More videos:

  • Review - JAC Vapour VIM Review - JAC does a side by side mod...
  • Review - Jac Vapour VIM - Quick Look

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Exercism and Vim)
Online Learning
100 100%
0% 0
Text Editors
0 0%
100% 100
Online Education
100 100%
0% 0
IDE
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Exercism and Vim

Exercism Reviews

LeetCode Alternatives: Top platforms for coding practice
What are LeetCode and LeetCode alternatives good for?LeetCode💡Interested in leveling up your career? Apply to the Formation Fellowship today!ApplyHackerRankCodeSignalAlgoExpertCodewarsGeeksforGeeksEdabitExercismTopCoderShould you use LeetCode for advanced interview prep?Get holistic interview prep with Formation
Source: formation.dev
8 Best LeetCode Alternatives and Similar Platforms
Exercism is the alternative to LeetCode learning platform, with over 4000 activities in up to 52 popular programming languages. It is very different from other comparable programming websites in that it emphasizes solo practice and also mentor-based learning. The greatest part about this software is to have an active developer community that assists novices all around the...
The 10 Most Popular Coding Challenge Websites [Updated for 2021]
Exercism is a coding challenge website that offers 3100+ challenges spanning 52 different programming languages. After picking a language that you'd like to master, you tackle the coding challenges right on your machine (Exercism has their own command line interface that you can download from GitHub).
Top 25 websites for coding challenge and competition [Updated for 2021]
Best qualities: Exercism starts off with language tracks that allow users to choose their preferred languages. Moreover, there are human mentors who will check your code and help you improve as you progress. This makes the platform perfect for total beginners who want to deepen their understanding of a new programming language.

Vim Reviews

Boost Your Productivity with These Top Text Editors and IDEs
Vim offers a variety of features like split windows, macros, and extensive customization options. It has a steep learning curve, but once you master it, you’ll be amazed at the speed and productivity it brings to your coding workflow. Vim is a favorite among experienced developers who value speed and efficiency above all else.
Source: convesio.com
13 Best Text Editors to Speed up Your Workflow
It’s tough to say which developers would enjoy Vim as a text editor. It’s an old system with an outdated interface. Yet, it still has the charm and powerful feature-set that the average developer needs. I would recommend it to more advanced developers who enjoy using open source software and being a part of a community–like the one you can find behind Vim.
Source: kinsta.com
12 Best LaTeX Editors You Should Use
The entire installation process is perfectly documented on their Sourceforge page, which you must definitely pay a visit. There is another standalone Vim software, known as the gVim that brings a GUI-based interface to the Vim document editor. Vim-LaTeX has been developed specifically for the programmers and it is so highly configurable that it can function anyway, ranging...
Source: beebom.com
The Top 7 Notepad++ Alternatives for You
Vim is a totally free Notepad++ alternative. It is available to use on Windows, Mac and Linux computers and it is very powerful. I was able to customize Vim to get it to look and function just how I want it. There is really good help support with Vim so if you are new to programming it will get you through most issues.
10 Best Notepad++ Alternatives in 2020
Vim is an advanced text editor open source tool which is also considered to be an IDE in its way. This tool allows managing your text editing activities with vim editors and UNIX System which can be used on-premise or online.
Source: www.guru99.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Exercism seems to be a lot more popular than Vim. While we know about 318 links to Exercism, we've tracked only 10 mentions of Vim. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Exercism mentions (318)

  • AI made me lazy. I didn’t notice until it was too late.
    Exercism.org structured deliberate practice, no AI required. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Free Python Resources
    Providing free coding exercises and mentorship, Exercism helps developers practice and improve their programming skills step by step. Their Python Track offers a series of exercises that guide learners from beginner to more advanced levels. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Collaboration Circles for Developers (2026)
    Exercism is a code practice + mentoring platform in 74 languages. Why it can work: although it is not exclusively focused on groups of five, its mentoring and peer review model allows forming mini-circles where participants give each other mutual feedback. Limitation: it is not originally intended as a "venting circle" (My favorite), but more technical-practical. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Cracking Blackjack with Go: A Step-by-Step Guide to Your First Move
    Keep practicing, keep coding, and most importantly—have fun with it! If you enjoyed this exercise, explore more challenges on exercism to continue building your Go skills. As always, you can find the complete code in my GitHub repo: https://github.com/RubenOAlvarado/algorithms. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Ask HN: What book should my CS1 students read?
    (concepts/topics) : The New Turing Omnibus, 66 Excursions in Computer Science[1] Code Complete [2] Debugging The 9 Indispensable Rules of Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems [3] Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software [4] -- backround stories on how 'computer' things came to be -------- [1] : https://www.amazon.com/New-Turing-Omnibus-Sixty-Six-Excursions/dp/0805071660... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
View more

Vim mentions (10)

  • regular Vim has lua?!
    Lua is quite small, encouraging distros to include it. The ubuntu gvim has, and the gvim AppImage linked from vim.org does. The default Makefile from github is set up to not include it, but you can uncomment one line there to get it. Source: over 3 years ago
  • is there a way to make highlighted text persistent after quit when using something like [match Search /\%'.line('.').'l/] ?
    I've not used vimwiki locally (tho I'm old enough to remember the Vim wiki on vim.org :), but I think what you are wanting to do is extend vimwiki's syntax file. I presume it installs one at $VIMRUNTIM/syntax or or ~/.vim/syntax. If this sounds right, then create a ~/.vim/after/syntax/vimwiki.vim file and place your match command in there. Then everytime you open a vimwiki file it should apply your... Source: over 3 years ago
  • vim.org - Is there a reason for this 1800s-esque design?
    Vim.org has 242k total visitors, tailwindcss.com has 4.4m, planetscale.com has 412k, jpl.nasa.gov has 2.6m, all built with Tailwind, all several years younger than Vim's website. Unnecessary comparison, unnecessary defence. It's a valuable tool, fine, but a complete disregard for anyone who doesn't love a crappy website and would like to navigate a website like a normal human is not something to be defended. Maybe... Source: almost 4 years ago
  • What is YOUR process of writing ?
    I write in Vim with some customizations in my vimrc to gear it more towards prose writing than code editing. It's not pretty, but Normal Mode and Ex commands are the most powerful text editing tools out there, so that means I spend less time on making corrections and other edits. Source: over 4 years ago
  • Why developers need to know about Vim
    If you are open minded and would like to try it out, click me for more information! Cheers. - Source: dev.to / over 4 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Exercism and Vim, you can also consider the following products

Codecademy - Learn the technical skills you need for the job you want. As leaders in online education and learning to code, we’ve taught over 45 million people using a tested curriculum and an interactive learning environment.

Sublime Text - Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Fully customizable with macros, and syntax highlighting for most major languages.

edX - Best Courses. Top Institutions. Learn anytime, anywhere.

VS Code - Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

Treehouse - Treehouse is an award-winning online platform that teaches people how to code.

GNU Emacs - GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more.