Discussion

So, two thoughts on the filenames.

Task-oriented vs. Sequence-oriented Filenames

First, I think we should use a sequence of files, not a list of things that you can do. So, vim_1.practice, not vim_patterns_5.practice, for example. My reasoning for this is that as a new vim user, most people will not even know what is possible in Vim, so we shouldn’t organize things by what you can do. It’s a master/student relationship, like karate, so by default, we will tell the students what they will be learning. Of course, if they are beyond that stage, then more power to them—they can go ahead and find the files they want or create their own.

Additionally, we might be able to create a helptags-like system that indexes the lessons by task (something to think about for later).

File Naming Scheme

Second, I think we should combine the numbers and colors idea for levels. So for example, we could have 6 practice files:

• vim_kata_1_white.practice
• vim_kata_2_yellow.practice
• vim_kata_3_green.practice
• vim_kata_4_blue.practice
• vim_kata_5_red.practice
• vim_kata_6_black.practice

My reasoning here is that some people (including myself at first) do not know the order of the “belt colors” and so it would be confusing at first (confusion should be minimized). But I also really like the idea of having a kind of “story” going here… we could introduce each file with a little pat on the back and “Congrats, you made it to a vim kata blue belt!” or something like that. A light narrative always helps a beginner.