MrWarper's software to help learning languages (general)

General discussion about learning languages
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mrwarper
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MrWarper's software to help learning languages (general)

Postby mrwarper » Sat Apr 30, 2022 11:22 am

As I mentioned in the self-introductions thread, I am back on this forum mainly to get some help to (further) develop software tools of mine, aimed at helping with language learning. Since I am a bit concerned with not getting enough feedback due to a lack of visibility within the forum, I will start my project threads here in the General Discussion sub-forum until the admins find or create a better place for them.

All individual project threads will be separate from each other and this one. The reason is, I would like to make some general considerations that should apply to all of them, and I think this will help focus related but non-project-specific discussion and keep it separate from the projects.

First, I started working on my stuff for my own consumption as a language learner, but now I will develop it as a teacher. Currently my main focus is not on producing language learning materials, but rather enabling myself (and all other users) to produce materials that are more useful, copyright-free, or otherwise better than currently available, as easily as possible.

As a consequence, if we do get my projects to a satisfactory point so that they might be integrated into the main website later on, this will not directly help any 'consumer' language learners yet. For my tools to be of any real use within/for the community, the community will need volunteers willing to produce materials that will be useful for other learners. I don't expect this to be a problem, since we already have learner teams, 'godfathers', and all of that -- I just wanted to be clear and up-front about it.

Regarding 'softwarey' considerations, mainly but not exclusively aimed at the IT-savvy:
-my tools will all be web-browser based. This is to ensure the widest possible range of use (read: computers, tablets, smartphones), starting with system-neutrality (read: running on "Pear-" or "Robot-" based devices only is a no-go for me, and also branching development early on).
-no JS libraries, no complex HTML styles, no 'bleeding edge' stuff of any kind will be used -- nothing that can't be edited by hand or can't be read at a glance--at least not gratuitously. It is OK that something grows to be complex, making it unnecessarily complex from the get-go is not.
-where a server-side for an application is necessary, it will be kept to the bare minimum to ensure maximum portability across server systems (i.e. no 'newer PHP version required' stuff when migrating).
-output will always be simple and vendor-neutral, i.e. any files generated by my applications here, f.e. in the case of text documents, won't be in DOCX or similar formats, but rather plain text, html, or maybe PDF, and the like. This will ensure that they can be used directly on websites, for example, while not preventing any users from opening them with any program of their choice for their own purposes (f.e. for the so-inclined, open and save them in M$ or OpenOffice formats for domestic use ; )
-in general, backwards compatibility will be maximized so running on old systems or whatever is not a problem.

I could digress about general stuff all day but hopefully this will be enough to spark any non-specific discussions that we should really be having.

For the curious, the first separate project thread is upcoming in a few hours, and no, I won't be giving you a list of what others may or may not come afterwards. :)
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mrwarper
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Languages: A bunch, in various stages
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Re: MrWarper's software to help learning languages (general)

Postby mrwarper » Sun May 01, 2022 12:44 pm

In case anyone missed it, the first project for which I'd like to get feedback / help here on the forum is a self-checking exercise generator.
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mrwarper
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License of use for code bits

Postby mrwarper » Sun May 01, 2022 4:53 pm

Coming from the exercise generator thread, this will arise more than once:

Given the open nature of web stuff in the form of HTML, CSS and javascript, I could probably run all code through an obfuscator if I wanted to keep it to myself, which for the most part I don't -- I'd directly choose some less open technology for that.

While I of course reserve my own right to use my code as I see fit, I hereby grant all registered members of LLorg non-exclusive right to use any bits of code I publish here on the forum, unmodified, for non-commercial use only. For any other forms of use, please contact me.
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