RCOS Application Spring 2012

The goal of the Koala Project is to make beginning computer programming as fun, quick, and easy as possible. The Koala scripting language uses English-like syntax and visual metaphors to make code less cryptic and more readable. By using the web-based Koala IDE, anyone with a web browser can start writing code right away, avoiding the treacherous task of setting up a (platform specific) development environment. Users can create fun and useful web applications to share with friends and family or publish to the world. Built on open source values, anyone can view a published application's source, contribute to, and import attributed code to one's own project.

Koala has been in development for over a year now, thanks to the support of the Rensselaer Center for Open Source (RCOS). A number of standard and upcoming web technologies make Koala possible, including HTML(4.1/5), CSS(3), Javascript, and Node.js. Development thus far has focused on client side functionality, resulting in a well polished GUI and a very fast custom syntax highlighter.

Development has been scheduled to continue into this spring semester, with the main goal of releasing at least one public stable build (beta). Efforts will be made to mitigate previous challenges and shortcomings of the project including lack of complete documentation and poorly planned milestones.

Week    Date      Version       Goal
01      Feb 03    0.03 alpha    Syntax highlighter code freeze
02      Feb 10    0.04 alpha    Functional node.js server (serve static files)
03      Feb 17    0.04 alpha    Implement database and AJAX communication
04      Feb 24    0.04 alpha    User authentication, server code freeze
05      Mar 02    0.05 alpha    Implement koala object representation, compile to function objects
06      Mar 09    0.05 alpha    Error detection in compiler, code freeze
07      Mar 16    0.06 alpha    Client side storage with localStorage for offline use
08      Mar 23    0.06 alpha    Server side project storage
09      Mar 30    0.07 alpha    Project resource management UI code freeze
10      Apr 06    0.08 alpha    Project publishing code freeze
11      Apr 13    0.09 alpha    Panel management, interactive console
12      Apr 20    0.09 alpha    Welcome page, GUI code freeze
13      Apr 27    0.10 beta     Public beta, error reporting
14      May 04    0.10 beta     Respond to bug reports