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Created July 20, 2012 21:25
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TryJavascript.org Mission
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mission.md

TryJavascript.org mission

Table of Contents

  1. Goals
  • Discourse: Ungoals
  1. Audience
  2. New programmers
  3. Experienced programmers
  4. General Concept / The "Tutorial"
  5. Levels
  6. Steps

Apendix:

  1. Dictionary of Terms

Goals

  1. Present the fundamental aspects of programming in the JavaScript programming language.

  2. Leave the person learning JavaScript with a strong understanding of JavaScript's quirks and strengths.

  3. Provide resources for further learning about testing / linting/ other JS workflows should an experienced developer wish to use them while developing with other JS developers.

Discourse: Ungoals

  1. Don't push a certain code style. Automatic Semicolon Insertion (ASI) has been a hot debate in the JS community lately, but I agree with issacs that who write JavaScript should understand ASI first and then choose the style thatworks best for them / their team.

Audience

The audience of tryjavascript.org is expected to be similar to the audiences of tryruby. This audience includes a wide range of programming experience; the audience may have no programming experience or may be very experienced. The experienced users are expected to be learning JS for fun or as a requirement by their employer.

New Programmers / Inexperienced Programmers

"New programmers" are programmers with little-to-no previous programming experience. These new programmers may need to be introduced to basic programming flows like loops and variable assignment.

Experienced programmers

JavaScript has a C-style syntax, so learning JavaScript for many experienced developers should be, for the most part, trivial. These devs may be more interested in the object-oriented and functional paradims of advanced Javascript.

General Concept / "The Tutorial"

The general idea for implementing a tutorial-like system is using the concepts of steps and levels.

Levels

A tutorial should walk the learner through several levels. Completing a level indicates that the learner's understanding of Javascript has (hopefully) increased. Each level has several steps. Once a learner has completed every level in the tutorial, they should have nothing left to do, except check out resources if they want.

Steps

A step is essentially a task for the learner to complete. Once the learner has completed every step in the level, they continue on to the next level. A task may include adding some numbers together, or performing some manipulation on a string, or even declaring and using a function!

Each step has an expectation, that is, some condition that the learner's input should satisfy. If the condition is that the learnre's input should equal the number 42, then any input the learner gives (such as 42, 7 * 6, or 41 + 1) should satisfy that expectation before they are allowed to move on.

TL;DR The learner's input should match the expectation of the step in order for the learner to move on to the next step or level.

Interface

Somewhere noticeable at all times should be a Progress meter, which shows how many levels a user has completed, and how many they have left. The meter should also show how many steps the user has left in the current level they are working on.

The user should have a textbox that acts as a pseudo-code-editor where they can input code and have it evaluated. This code box is called the Editor.

The user should always have the present step or ( task ) readily available, so they can refer to it while writing code that satisfies the step.

TL;DR The learner should be prompted to complete some code task. The learner should input the code into the Editor and indicate they are ready to have their code evaluated via some submit button or something like that. The learner is then given feedback as to whether or not their code satisfies the step's expectation.

If the learner's input does satisfy the expectation, they are either:

  • Taken to the next step if there are more steps in the level
  • Taken to the next level if there are no more steps in the level

Appendix

Dictionary of Terms

  • Editor - A means for the learner to input code.

  • Expectation - A condition which the learner's input must satisfy.

  • Learner - person using the TryJavascript.org website to learn JavaScript. A learner does code exercises to learn JavaScript.

  • Level - The major building block of a tutorial. Each level represents a general concept in JavaScript (such as performing arithmetic operations). Each level contains several steps.

  • Progress Meter - An element on the page that represents a learner's progress through the tutorial.

  • Step - The minor building block of a tutorial. Each step represents a coding exercise for the learner to complete. A step may have one or many expectations.

  • Tutorial - The general idea that the website is interacted with as a step-by-step process in which the learner's understanding of JavaScript increases after each step. Every step builds upon its previous step.

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