Game of Code: Checkio gamifies and crowdsources the task of programming

Who says coding has to be boring? Checkio, a Las Vegas company with Ukrainian origins funded by Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, has come up with a way to turn writing code and helping others write code into a game.

The company’s latest addition to its web-based code-editing platform is a publish-and-share feature, where players can write, design, and publish custom coding missions and then share them across the Checkio community. Those who win the top scores in the leaderboards, which measure the “most elegant” solutions, can win prizes.