BurlingtonCodeAcademy / codelikethis

Burlington Code Academy curriculum website

Source for Burlington Code Academy Curriculum

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Setup

First, make your own fork, and install Ruby and git on your computer. Then...

1. git clone XXX (where XXX is either https://github.com/burlingtoncodeacademy/codelikethis.git or your personal github repository URL)
2. cd codelikethis
3. gem install bundler
4. bundle install
5. rake spec (to run all tests and verify setup)
6. rake build (to compile CSS)
7. rake run (or rerun to rebuild/restart on file changes)
8. open http://localhost:9292

Usage

SCSS is currently built using Sass. Run this all the time in development, or at least once before deploy after you change anything:

rake build

Command	Description
rake spec	run all tests and verify setup
rake build	compile CSS
rake run	run local server on http://localhost:9292
rerun rackup	run with rebuild/restart on file changes
rerun --pattern '*.scss' --exit -- rake build	run this in a separate terminal to compile CSS when SCSS changes too
./check-links.sh	check entire site for broken links

Note that any of the above may need to be preceded by bundle exec e.g. bundle exec rerun rackup (whether you need to do this or not depends on gnarly details of your Ruby installation).

Deploying

Local -> Github -> CircleCI -> Heroku

• https://dashboard.heroku.com/apps/btvca-curriculum/deploy/github
• https://circleci.com/gh/BurlingtonCodeAcademy/codelikethis
• https://github.com/settings/applications
• https://github.com/BurlingtonCodeAcademy/codelikethis/settings/hooks/90661849

Layout

Path	Description
./app.rb	main app
./config.ru	app config
lib	ruby source code
lib/thing.rb::WEIRD_WORDS	list of oddly-capitalized words (e.g. CSS, JavaScript)
lib/bootcamp.rb	ruby Site describing the Bootcamp course(s)
lib/bootcamp-schedule.json	JSON describing the Bootcamp course schedule
spec	ruby test source code
public	web-visible files
public/images	web site images
public/lessons/images	images used by some lessons
public/lessons/foo/bar.jpg	an image used by only a single lesson
public/js	web site scripts
public/css	web site css files -- do not edit these directly!
public/scss	web site sass source files, compiled into public/css
public/lessons	course files (markdown and images), organized by track
public/lessons/trackname/	track files (markdown and images), organized by track
public/lessons/trackname/trackname.rb	track description files; names match public/lessons subdirs
public/lessons/trackname/baking.md	markdown slides for a single lesson named baking (served from /lessons/trackname/bake_cookies URL path)
public/projects/bake_cookies.md	markdown slides for a single project named bake_cookies (served from /projects/bake_cookies URL path)

Sites

a Site is

• a hostname
• an ordered collection of Tracks
• a home page
• a schedule

Currently there are three Sites:

1. The Bootcamp Curriculum http://bootcamp.burlingtoncodeacademy.com
2. JavaScript After Hours http://js-intro.burlingtoncodeacademy.com
3. JavaScript One Night Introduction http://taste-of-js.burlingtoncodeacademy.com

Both sites are served from the same web application instance, running on Heroku (http://btvca-curriculum.herokuapp.com). The app looks at request.host and serves a different Site to each hostname.

To add a Site, follow the example of Bootcamp.

To point DNS at a new Site:

1. run heroku domains:add newsite --app btvca-curriculum
2. run heroku domains --app btvca-curriculum and note the "DNS Target" for your new site
3. in your DNS manager, add a CNAME record pointing the subdomain name (e.g. newsite) to the DNS target (e.g. salty-hyena-j9awwxxx123.herokudns.com)

(Note that Heroku SSL ACM does not support wildcard domains, so each CNAME subdomain will need a separate heroku DNS Target.)

To view a Site locally, use a site parameter, e.g. http://localhost:9292/?site=bootcamp. This parameter sets a cookie so future page requests will stay on that site; this is a convenience for localhost development and should not be used in a production environment (and if it is used, it may override the real site as specified by the subdomain).

Adding a Track

1. Decide on its name. Its name is a camelcase_word that will automatically turn into titlecase when displayed. (e.g. cook_food => Cook Food)
2. create a new subdir inside public/lessons (e.g. public/lessons/cook_food/)
3. define a Track subclass in a new file inside that dir (e.g. public/lessons/cook_food/cook_food.rb) and
4. declare your lessons inside the track file. Look at the existing .rb files inside public/lessons for examples.
5. for each Lesson, put its slides in a markdown file with its name in the lessons directory (e.g. public/lessons/cook_food/stirfry.md)
6. add the Track to your Site by following the example of Bootcamp

Projects

Currently a project consists of a markdown file in the public/projects/ directory e.g. public/projects/foo.md. It is viewable via the path /projects/foo (note the lack of file extension).

To declare a project is a bit scattershot. It can be referenced in several places:

1. in the schedule JSON attached to a given week
2. in a Lesson file (not the slides markdown)
3. in a Track file, directly under the Track
4. in a Track file, nested under a Lesson

We should clean this up, so we don't have duplication/omission of e.g. project descriptions depending on where they're defined/referenced.

URL Rewriting

If you rename a track or lesson, add an entry to config.ru so external links to the old name do not become dead links.

config.ru also rewrites incoming URLs containing underscores, converting from snake_case to kebab-case for lessons, projects, etc. -- but NOT for image files and other media -- and the app can find lesson etc. files in either snake_case or kebab-case format.