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https://github.com/hackworthltd/primer-app

Primer's React frontend application.
https://github.com/hackworthltd/primer-app

education functional-programming primer programming programming-language react typescript web

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Primer's React frontend application.

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README 

        
# Primer App



Primer is a pedagogical functional programming language. This

repository contains a collection of [React](https://react.dev)

components to support Primer programming-related activities, including

reading, writing, running, and debugging Primer programs. The project

also provides a web application which integrates these components into

a novel visual programming environment, featuring a

[tree-based](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_syntax_tree)

[structure editor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_editor).



For the moment, we're focusing on the development of the integrated

web app, but our long-term goal is to make it possible to use the

project's React components to integrate Primer programming activities

into interactive applications and games.



The web app in this project currently requires that a Primer language

server instance is available. We provide a Haskell implementation of a

Primer language server in this project's companion repository,

[`primer`](https://github.com/hackworthltd/primer). Both projects are

licensed under the terms of [version 3 (or later) of the GNU Affero

General Public License](COPYING), and can be freely copied, modified,

and distributed, so long as the license is preserved.



# Important caveats



The Primer programming language, our Primer language server

implementation, and this web app are all still under heavy

development. Expect lots of breaking changes until we reach stable

releases of all of these components. Please note that we don't

currently have any accurate time estimates for when we expect to reach

these milestones.



This web app, in particular, should be considered to be of

alpha-release quality. There are many incomplete and altogether

missing features, known bugs, and visual & usability defects. While

it's already possible to write at least some Primer programs using

this web app, **please keep in mind the following important caveats

about the current state of the project**:



* We've yet to do any rigorous testing of Primer with students, and

  none at all in classrooms. Primer may turn out not be an effective

  way to teach functional programming to novices! That said, if you're

  an educator and you'd like to know more about the limited testing we

  *have* done to date, please reach out to us. As some important

  features are still missing from the web app, we don't recommend that

  you try to use Primer for any serious teaching at this time.



* At the moment, this project requires access to a Primer language

  server instance, so you should also familiarize yourself with [that

  project's

  caveats](https://github.com/hackworthltd/primer#important-caveats),

  as well. Running a Primer language server instance is relatively

  easy if you're a developer, as we provide a [Docker image for

  it](https://github.com/hackworthltd/primer/pkgs/container/primer-service),

  but we're aware that many educators may not have the time or

  knowledge to do this themselves. In the not-too-distant future, we

  hope to be able to run the development environment in the browser,

  without requiring a server instance.



* All of our UX design has been done with

  [accessibility](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility)

  (*a11y*) in mind, and our 1.0 release will have robust support for

  it, but the current implementation is lacking. As we're not a11y

  experts, if you'd like to make an important

  [contribution](#contributing) to the project, this would be a

  particularly impactful area in which to do it.



* One of the primary goals of the Primer programming language is to

  support programming activities in the student's native language, so

  that the ability to read and write English is not a prerequisite for

  learning to program. As such, the Primer language server API is

  mostly natural language-neutral; e.g., the API reports errors as

  symbolic values, rather than as text strings intended to be shown to

  the student verbatim. Full

  [internationalization](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Internationalization)

  (*i18n*) support is left to clients of the Primer API, such as this

  web app. However, for practical and resource-related reasons, our

  initial web app implementation only fully supports English. We'll

  make a best-effort attempt to support a few other widely-spoken

  natural languages in our 1.0 release, and robust i18n support will

  be a high priority in post-1.0 releases, but this is another area in

  which community members could make an impactful

  [contribution](#contributing) to the project.



* At the moment, Primer is a pure functional programming language,

  with no effects system. This means, for example, it's not currently

  possible to [draw animated cats](https://scratch.mit.edu) using

  Primer. We plan to implement an effects system in version 2.0 of the

  language specification and this web app, but that will work will not

  begin for some time. Version 1.0 of Primer will focus on teaching

  fundamental functional programming concepts, such as functions,

  types, expressions, and program evaluation.

  

# Contributing



We welcome contributions from the community! Please read our

[contributing guide](CONTRIBUTING.md) if you think you'd like to help.



We also provide a comprehensive [development

guide](docs/development-guide-toc.md) for anyone who'd like to build

and run the project locally.



# Third-party licenses



Some third-party assets that we distribute together with this

project's source code (e.g., open source fonts) are licensed

separately from the source code. For each such asset, there's a

corresponding license file in the `licenses` subdirectory of the

project.



We have also "vendored" some source code from third-party libraries;

i.e., we have included a few third-party source code files directly in

this project, rather than linking to them as a pre-built dependency.

When this is the case, the source files will include their license and

copyright notice directly in the source file.