#007 Orlando thinks: Wordle is great for learning to code
Hello everyone, it’s me, Orlando. I’m an Apple fanboy and software engineer at arconsis. From time to time, I publish an article from the series “Orlando thinks” in which I highlight a specific topic that I see as important or exciting. Sometimes it might be just certain aspects of everyday life, but sometimes it might be tips, hints, thoughts, or appeals — but non-sense is not excluded either.
First of all, I must apologize. I promised to publish an article every week. But to be honest, this frequency is just too high. Therefore I have adjusted the text in the intro — I will continue to write something regularly — but be patient with me ;)
The game Wordle has been making the rounds for some time now. I became aware of it via Twitter, where you suddenly saw many people sharing colorful boxes with a link. At first, I didn’t feel like dealing with the hype, but you do get curious at some point.
Excursus: What is Wordle?
Since I would only quote Wikipedia here, I’d best link directly to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordle
Quick summary: Wordle is a word puzzle game containing elements from Mastermind and Hangman. You have to guess a 5-digit word in a maximum of 6 tries.
Which always makes you smile the first time briefly: Wordle is named after its inventor, Josh Wardle.
Okay. A word puzzle game. It’s not necessarily my favorite genre. And somehow, it’s just a variation of known concepts and other, widespread games.
But then you try it out. And lo and behold, I enjoyed it!
After a few rounds, I wondered what was so good about it.
It’s addictive but different
Games can be addictive. However, I distinguish between “healthy addictive” and “unhealthy addictive”. The unhealthy kind includes, for example, games that intend to feed the addiction to make more profit. As a result, people like to sit for hours in front of the screen and waste their time. Time flying by can also be the case with “good” games — that’s okay — but they shouldn’t leave you with a bad conscience afterward. In the most extreme case, you are forced to buy virtual coins because this is the only way to progress faster or at all.
Wordle is good because it has implemented the “casual” principle well. One word per day — one round of puzzling, and then that’s enough.
It helps enormously not to have the effect of “wanting to start a game after work” only to realize that 4 hours have passed and you still have a lot to do.
Yes, the clones currently being built tend to ignore this point. But I am talking about the original idea. And that was: One word per day.
People puzzle and discuss together
“Hey, multiplayer really isn’t a unique selling point anymore!”.
However, I even enjoy playing the game with my wife on one phone. It’s like solving crossword puzzles together. So you immediately get a social structure — you want to puzzle together. And if you have played the word of the day separately, you talk about it later — about the solutions and which letters you were stuck on, which words you were thinking of, etc.
And even if you don’t play together at home:
Showing your own “path of suffering” to the solution in the form of colored boxes, which you then share via social media, is what made the game so famous in the first place. Ingeniously simple and great.
It is “new”
As already mentioned: The game itself is not new. The principle of “playing” and “having fun” does not need constant innovation.
On the other hand, promising innovations often combine known concepts to make something better. Apple has taken this to the next level in the last decades.
So I would say that Wordle is new and innovative.
After all, what is often forgotten: Simple “inventions” are often the most successful. And Wordle is at least so successful that the New York Times is interested in it and has bought it.
And what does that have to do with coding now?
As a software engineer, you always look at applications with different eyes. You don’t just look at how it feels when you use it, but how you would build it. I’m always looking for programming tasks that are potentially exciting enough that you want to solve them. But also simple enough that you can teach them to someone who has never programmed before.
That balance is essential. Of course, I can show a novice how to store a string in a variable. Or how to implement a calculator. But is that still exciting today?
Wordle provides this balance.
It has a simple game logic, is basically easy to implement, but arbitrarily extendable. And due to the current hype, Wordle is also so widespread that it can “hook” people. So it’s not surprising that Wordle clones are popping up like mushrooms — the Apple App Store and Google Play Store are already completely overloaded with them.
Of course, a huge motivation to learn to code is solving a problem one has. But suppose for an inexperienced person, the biggest problem is that they are dissatisfied with all cloud services and need them “better”. In that case, this is rather demotivating as a first task.
Wordle is great for explaining programming
The core logic of Wordle is to compare the entered word with the wanted word. Based on whether the entered letters are present, in the right place, or not included at all, they are colored accordingly.
This can be achieved in a few lines in most programming languages. And less code is always great for teaching someone in software development.
Even the user interface, as we know it, with the 5x6 grid can be omitted. Simply build a command-line version. Further, we don’t currently have a word database? It doesn’t matter; you can just let another person “type” the word you are looking for. That would even emphasize “playing together” again.
Many of the points mentioned also apply to other games, of course. For example, card games. And if you love card games as a coding beginner, this may be the better alternative. But you should be aware that most mechanics here are a bit more complex.
Start teaching!
Do you have friends or family members who like playing Wordle? Are any of them interested in the field of computer science? Do you want to show them what your profession is all about? Then try it out: Sit down together and build a Wordle “light”.
I did just that with my wife. And even though it won’t make her apply for computer science studies — or change her career choice — it was so enjoyable for her. So we had a lot of fun, and finally, she understands what I do every day better.
So far…
Cheers 🍻
Orlando
