print("Start")

The starting point for anyone who wants to learn code.

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Inspiration

When we were learning to code, we could not find a website that helped you decide which language to learn based on a survey and then also provide you with reliable resources to start learning said language. We would have to first decide upon which language to start learning and when that was done, we would have to look on the internet for resources that were reliable. To solve this problem, we have created print(“Start”), a website that helps newcomers choose what language to learn and then provide them with all the resources they need.

What it does

Print(“Start”) is a website that is catered towards welcoming newcomers in the programming community. It has a survey that can help users determine which language to learn about. We decided to implement a survey because we realized that more often than not, newcomers do not know which language is fit for them. The survey is optional and does not need to be taken. If they know what language they want to learn, they can go over to the “Languages” tab and find reliable resources. After the results of the survey, the user is recommended a language to learn based on their answers in the survey.

How we built it

We built print(“Start”) using Python, HTML, CSS, Flask framework, and Visual Studio Code. The frontend is programmed using only HTML and CSS, without any Javascript. The role of HTML is just to lay out the pages and the CSS is to make them look good. We also used a templating language called Jinja so that we could design the layout for one page and then generate pages on the fly using the backend. The backend is programmed in Python using Flask because of how light-weight it is. For each programming language, Flask generates the page using a description and list of resources that we have created in a separate Python file. The project was deployed using Heroku using a domain from domain.com.

We used:

  • HTML (with Jinja templating language)
  • CSS
  • Python
  • Flask

Challenges we ran into

While constructing the web application, we faced only one major challenge, setting up the workspace. The challenge we faced as a group was when we had to clone our GitHub repositories and create a Python virtual environment where we can install all our packages. This was a big challenge which took a long time to solve as 3 out of the 4 people in our group were unaware on how to do so. Eventually, we resolved the issue that everyone was having. Other than that, everything else in our group worked flawlessly and no one had any trouble with constructing the code or the design aspect of the project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our group is composed of all young coders, of which 3/4 are participating in their first hackathon. With such little experience, our group managed to create a web application involving 4 different languages and a framework. Not only does it look appealing and is easy to manage/browse through, the main coding aspect also works. For young coders with average experience, we think the web application works extremely well.

What we learned

Throughout the 48 hours of coding, every individual in the group learned a lot in different ways. From setting up github repositories and a virtual environment, to designing our prototype on Figma, or even the basic things such as how to create a website using HTML and how to add components to format the website.

What's next for print("Start")

In the future, we would like to add a sign in/sign up page on the website with an integrated database that stores their information such as username and password. Using that database, we’ll then expand their preferences, and eventually, create our own resources and make it a complete unique tutorial website fully developed by our group.

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