The tamarisk tree is often planted, particularly in the desert. It requires a little bit of work; it requires cultivation. It takes 80 years for a tamarisk to grow to full height and maturity. The leaves of the tamarisk excrete salt to absorb what little moisture there is in the air, cooling itself and the shade around it. It’s worth the effort. Known as the salt cedar, the tamarisk provides shade and a pleasant coolness. The cultivation is for the joy of future generations. How many tamarisk trees did you plant today?
וַיִּטַּ֥ע אֶ֖שֶׁל בִּבְאֵ֣ר שָׁ֑בַע וַיִּ֨קְרָא־ שָׁ֔ם בְּשֵׁ֥ם יְהוָ֖ה אֵ֥ל עֹולָֽם׃
Following the image of the tamarisk, the goal of the final project is to cultivate a pleasant space for the joy of future generations. The seed has already been planted. Our work is to prune, water, and grow what we’ve been given with patience, care, and teamwork. Each of us, with our unique gifts, has the opportunity to contribute towards this direction.
What seed has been planted? The CodeBotApp, of course!
Thanks to the hard work of lukeczapla, CS students have been able to learn Java through lessons and assignments available on the aptly named web application -- Java CodeRunner v1.0.
Specifically, the application hosts a handful of video lessons and relevant assignments to the AP CS curriculum. Furthermore, the application scores the assignments and stores Google authenticated students’ progress.
What’s more, the application backend is written in Java. So not only does it aim to help students learn Java, but it does so through the very foundation of what it teaches.
Oh, what a beautiful self-referential dance! Can it build itself? Do we have a strange loop?
Regardless, don’t take my word for it, check out the application README at its associated GitHub repository, our tree trunk!
Thank you, lukeczapla, for planting the seed and growing the trunk. I believe it is time to take this Java CodeRunner to it’s next version. Fortunately, the current application can remain untouched and intact, and by forking the repository, we begin our clone, the next code runner generation -- Tamarisk.
How can you contribute? That depends on what you believe the application could use. Documentation, product design, product management, code clean up, new features, bug fixes, enhancements, UI, etc.
There is plenty to do. More to come...
Doc's suggestions: switch from old outdated AngularJS version to a React frontend (use cool react-bootstrap components), replace MySQL with MongoDB, build out monitoring tools.