Project Euler #912: Where are the Odds?

I know that that critique isn't new to anyone but it makes me think about how it would be cool if there were a code puzzler site that is specifically geared towards little self-contained tasks that are more to do with forcing you to get familiar with the common everyday tasks of software development.

Some example puzzlers could be like:

- open an http server on port 80

- open a file and write this data to it

- write temporary files to a location, deleting them when process exits

- query a database

- deal with such and such error scenario

- find a way to test this component

- bundle this code as an executable

- sanitize user input here

- make this behavior configurable

- take the config from environment variable variable and/or config file and/or arguments

- parse this data file

You do get a bit of parsing and file handling with Advent of Code but imagine a series of dozens of small problems that grill you on every corner of the python filesystem api. Would be a lot less dry than reading docs cover to cover.

people do like to say they use PE for learning new languages, but I doubt that is a useful exercise beyond maybe the first dozen problems or so. And even then, if the solution isn't obvious to you, you're doing two things at once - learning a language and solving a math puzzle. I don't see why people would sign up to get frustrated like that.