Webmaker/Concept-Nimble
Note to the Reader
This is a concept for a new Mozilla Webmaker tool called Nimble. This is not an announcement of such a tool, but a virtual presentation for MozFest 2013 on what such a tool might look like and accomplish.
Introduction
Webmaker is trying to provide the necessary building blocks for people to teach and learn web literacy. To that end we have built Popcorn Maker for creating web media, Thimble for interactive HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code editing, and X-Ray Goggles for live exploration and modification of existing web pages. All of this is tied together with a unified publishing, indexing, and discovery service we call the Make API.
In what follows I propose a new tool called Nimble. The name makes obvious reference to Thimble, which is intentional: Nimble is (eventually) a drop-in replacement for Thimble, but also something much more powerful. Nimble is a progressive HTML, CSS, and JavaScript learning and coding environment that grows in power and complexity along with its user. Fundamental to Nimble is the idea of configurable feature addition/removal based on a) the needs of the user (i.e., their skill level and understanding); and b) the requirements of a particular learning module, tutorial, or make.
From Thimble to Nimble
To understand the promise of Nimble, it's important to first look at Thimble, it's strengths and weaknesses. Thimble is live-edit coding environment made up of a few parts:
- a code editor, based on Code Mirror
- an HTML parser that provides extra help for beginners learning to code called Slowparse
- a preview iframe, which provides secure (i.e., different origin) live preview of the code being edited in the editor.