[racket] try-racket alternative

From: Floyd Arguello (floyd.arguello at gmail.com)
Date: Thu Feb 26 12:10:27 EST 2015

  Thanks! I mean for it to be an alternative for kids, and not a replacement for try-racket.org. The Quick Guide is an awesome tutorial for evaluating Racket, but my daughters struggled with it. How do you write something simple enough for people with no programming experience, without boring experienced programmers? My thought was to have two online REPLs.


I do plan to submit pull requests to your repo after testing the javascript changes/additions a bit more. I also made one change in main.rkt, so that a user can start the web server by specifying the path to main.rkt… simpler for scripting.


We can also update the design for Try Racket, either using Try Code’s design, or maintaining consistency with racket-lang.org.


I can take over try-racket.org if you want, or I can submit PRs to your repo.


Cheers,
Floyd


> On Feb 25, 2015, at 11:57 PM, J Arcane <jarcane at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Oh wow! This is quite lovely. Definitely an improvement so far, in my book.
> 
> I believe that the one included in try-racket is mostly based upon the Quick Guide: http://docs.racket-lang.org/quick/
> The examples are largely similar, I think just a few things were tweaked or abbreviated.
> 
> 
> The state of the web front-end is mostly unmodified because I simply didn't have much in the way of web-design skills when I took on the project. I treated the JS side in particular as little more than a black box. I've picked up some JS/HTML since, but my skills as an admin or a web dev still leave a lot to be desired. 
> 
> 
> Ultimately, my interest has always been in just seeing to it that there was a high-quality online repl available for Racket somewhere, and at the time, none was hosted, so I took up the repo because I needed to be able to easily push changes to get it working.
> 
> 
> This is all just a rambling lead up to say that I really like what you've done with the thing, and to be perfectly honest would be quite happy to hand over the domain. 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 11:57 PM, Floyd Arguello <floyd.arguello at gmail.com
>>wrote:
>> 
>> Thank you!
>> 
>> 
>> They are enjoying Racket - Realm of Racket is a phenomenal book.
>> 
>> 
>> Floyd
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Feb 25, 2015, at 3:30 PM, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt <samth at cs.indiana.edu
>>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This is really nicely done! I hope your daughters are enjoying Racket
>>> as well. :)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Sam
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 4:11 PM, Floyd Arguello
>>> <floyd.arguello at gmail.com
>>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> I found that my daughters had a lot of questions when they went through the
>>>> tutorial at http://try-racket.org/
>>>> - what’s a function? What’s a binding?
>>>> Lambda? Lexical scope?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> So, I thought I’d create an alternative to try-racket - for kids ages 12 and
>>>> up, give or take.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> With that in mind, I forked https://github.com/jarcane/try-racket
>>>> , applied a
>>>> new design, and added:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> * the bootstrap js framework
>>>> * the ability to clear and reset the console (doesn’t clear pictures yet)
>>>> * multi-line entries in the console - auto indents at 2 spaces (needs more
>>>> work)
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I also removed “context” from the error messages - to keep the errors short
>>>> and sweet.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> It’s very much a work in progress, but you can see it here:
>>>> http://trycode.io/
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> As for the content, one idea is to rewrite the tutorial for a younger, less
>>>> experienced crowd, and use the “info” box in the lower left to provide
>>>> additional information, terminology, context, etc…
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Another idea is to write a simple, text-based game; though it lacks the
>>>> instant gratification of a picture appearing in the console.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Any ideas/feedback?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Anyone want to pitch in? :)
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> https://github.com/arguello/trycode.io
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Floyd
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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