chore: update docs for July 2024 (#890)

Author: vaeng

exercises/practice/bank-account/.docs/instructions.md

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 Your task is to implement bank accounts supporting opening/closing, withdrawals, and deposits of money.
 
 As bank accounts can be accessed in many different ways (internet, mobile phones, automatic charges), your bank software must allow accounts to be safely accessed from multiple threads/processes (terminology depends on your programming language) in parallel.
-For example, there may be many deposits and withdrawals occurring in parallel; you need to ensure there is no [race conditions][wikipedia] between when you read the account balance and set the new balance.
+For example, there may be many deposits and withdrawals occurring in parallel; you need to ensure there are no [race conditions][wikipedia] between when you read the account balance and set the new balance.
 
 It should be possible to close an account; operations against a closed account must fail.
 

exercises/practice/darts/.docs/instructions.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Instructions
 
-Write a function that returns the earned points in a single toss of a Darts game.
+Calculate the points scored in a single toss of a Darts game.
 
 [Darts][darts] is a game where players throw darts at a [target][darts-target].
 
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ In our particular instance of the game, the target rewards 4 different amounts o
 The outer circle has a radius of 10 units (this is equivalent to the total radius for the entire target), the middle circle a radius of 5 units, and the inner circle a radius of 1.
 Of course, they are all centered at the same point — that is, the circles are [concentric][] defined by the coordinates (0, 0).
 
-Write a function that given a point in the target (defined by its [Cartesian coordinates][cartesian-coordinates] `x` and `y`, where `x` and `y` are [real][real-numbers]), returns the correct amount earned by a dart landing at that point.
+Given a point in the target (defined by its [Cartesian coordinates][cartesian-coordinates] `x` and `y`, where `x` and `y` are [real][real-numbers]), calculate the correct score earned by a dart landing at that point.
 
 ## Credit
 

exercises/practice/darts/.meta/config.json

@@ -18,6 +18,6 @@
       ".meta/example.h"
     ]
   },
-  "blurb": "Write a function that returns the earned points in a single toss of a Darts game.",
+  "blurb": "Calculate the points scored in a single toss of a Darts game.",
   "source": "Inspired by an exercise created by a professor Della Paolera in Argentina"
 }

exercises/practice/matching-brackets/.docs/instructions.md

@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 # Instructions
 
 Given a string containing brackets `[]`, braces `{}`, parentheses `()`, or any combination thereof, verify that any and all pairs are matched and nested correctly.
-The string may also contain other characters, which for the purposes of this exercise should be ignored.
+Any other characters should be ignored.
+For example, `"{what is (42)}?"` is balanced and `"[text}"` is not.

exercises/practice/matching-brackets/.docs/introduction.md

@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+# Introduction
+
+You're given the opportunity to write software for the Bracketeer™, an ancient but powerful mainframe.
+The software that runs on it is written in a proprietary language.
+Much of its syntax is familiar, but you notice _lots_ of brackets, braces and parentheses.
+Despite the Bracketeer™ being powerful, it lacks flexibility.
+If the source code has any unbalanced brackets, braces or parentheses, the Bracketeer™ crashes and must be rebooted.
+To avoid such a scenario, you start writing code that can verify that brackets, braces, and parentheses are balanced before attempting to run it on the Bracketeer™.

exercises/practice/parallel-letter-frequency/.docs/instructions.md

@@ -4,4 +4,4 @@ Count the frequency of letters in texts using parallel computation.
 
 Parallelism is about doing things in parallel that can also be done sequentially.
 A common example is counting the frequency of letters.
-Create a function that returns the total frequency of each letter in a list of texts and that employs parallelism.
+Employ parallelism to calculate the total frequency of each letter in a list of texts.

exercises/practice/pascals-triangle/.docs/instructions.md

@@ -1,14 +1,35 @@
 # Instructions
 
-Compute Pascal's triangle up to a given number of rows.
+Your task is to output the first N rows of Pascal's triangle.
 
-In Pascal's Triangle each number is computed by adding the numbers to the right and left of the current position in the previous row.
+[Pascal's triangle][wikipedia] is a triangular array of positive integers.
+
+In Pascal's triangle, the number of values in a row is equal to its row number (which starts at one).
+Therefore, the first row has one value, the second row has two values, and so on.
+
+The first (topmost) row has a single value: `1`.
+Subsequent rows' values are computed by adding the numbers directly to the right and left of the current position in the previous row.
+
+If the previous row does _not_ have a value to the left or right of the current position (which only happens for the leftmost and rightmost positions), treat that position's value as zero (effectively "ignoring" it in the summation).
+
+## Example
+
+Let's look at the first 5 rows of Pascal's Triangle:
 
 ```text
     1
    1 1
   1 2 1
  1 3 3 1
 1 4 6 4 1
-# ... etc
 ```
+
+The topmost row has one value, which is `1`.
+
+The leftmost and rightmost values have only one preceding position to consider, which is the position to its right respectively to its left.
+With the topmost value being `1`, it follows from this that all the leftmost and rightmost values are also `1`.
+
+The other values all have two positions to consider.
+For example, the fifth row's (`1 4 6 4 1`) middle value is `6`, as the values to its left and right in the preceding row are `3` and `3`:
+
+[wikipedia]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_triangle

exercises/practice/pascals-triangle/.docs/introduction.md

@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+# Introduction
+
+With the weather being great, you're not looking forward to spending an hour in a classroom.
+Annoyed, you enter the class room, where you notice a strangely satisfying triangle shape on the blackboard.
+Whilst waiting for your math teacher to arrive, you can't help but notice some patterns in the triangle: the outer values are all ones, each subsequent row has one more value than its previous row and the triangle is symmetrical.
+Weird!
+
+Not long after you sit down, your teacher enters the room and explains that this triangle is the famous [Pascal's triangle][wikipedia].
+
+Over the next hour, your teacher reveals some amazing things hidden in this triangle:
+
+- It can be used to compute how many ways you can pick K elements from N values.
+- It contains the Fibonacci sequence.
+- If you color odd and even numbers differently, you get a beautiful pattern called the [Sierpiński triangle][wikipedia-sierpinski-triangle].
+
+The teacher implores you and your classmates to lookup other uses, and assures you that there are lots more!
+At that moment, the school bell rings.
+You realize that for the past hour, you were completely absorbed in learning about Pascal's triangle.
+You quickly grab your laptop from your bag and go outside, ready to enjoy both the sunshine _and_ the wonders of Pascal's triangle.
+
+[wikipedia]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_triangle
+[wikipedia-sierpinski-triangle]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierpi%C5%84ski_triangle

exercises/practice/pig-latin/.docs/instructions.md

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ For example:
 
 ## Rule 2
 
-If a word begins with a one or more consonants, first move those consonants to the end of the word and then add an `"ay"` sound to the end of the word.
+If a word begins with one or more consonants, first move those consonants to the end of the word and then add an `"ay"` sound to the end of the word.
 
 For example:
 
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ If a word starts with zero or more consonants followed by `"qu"`, first move tho
 
 For example:
 
-- `"quick"` -> `"ickqu"` -> `"ay"` (starts with `"qu"`, no preceding consonants)
+- `"quick"` -> `"ickqu"` -> `"ickquay"` (starts with `"qu"`, no preceding consonants)
 - `"square"` -> `"aresqu"` -> `"aresquay"` (starts with one consonant followed by `"qu`")
 
 ## Rule 4

exercises/practice/resistor-color-duo/.docs/instructions.md

@@ -29,5 +29,5 @@ The band colors are encoded as follows:
 - White: 9
 
 From the example above:
-brown-green should return 15
+brown-green should return 15, and
 brown-green-violet should return 15 too, ignoring the third color.