ValidAlligator

Inspiration

This project came to life when we wanted to design an integrated developer's tool that would be helpful for programmers of all levels. We traced back to our past learning struggles and decided to create tools to overcome the learning curve. These tools combined are focused on enforcing learning habits for the user.

What it does

There are 3 main tools in our extension: The HTML Validator (in development), the AI highlighter tool, and the Note Taker. The HTML Validator flags the user's poor coding practices by using 'if' conditional checks and complex sorting algorithms. The AI highlighter tool has 3 versions: debugging, refactoring, and suggesting. The generated responses are designed to be concise, so as not to overwhelm the programmer and get straight to the point. Using the AI highlighter does not allow for user-prompting to prevent the AI from "thinking" for the programmer. The Note Taker works directly with the AI to save that information to a user-chosen directory.

How we built it

The project was programmed using mainly JavaScript and the VSCode API. HTML and CSS were used to create the look of the UI elements. Google's Gemini is invoked via an API to generate responses.

Challenges we ran into

Unfortunately, we experienced many creative conflicts amongst teammates and suffered from scope creep. We believe some aspects of the project should be further refined and will be considered in the future.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are incredibly proud to have developed an efficient, integrated study tool that doesn't even need you to lift your hands from the keyboard! Furthermore, our team gained significant experience with API calls, file I/O, and project management.

What we learned

Creating projects is difficult, but rewarding. We struggled but overcame many challenges throughout this hackathon, such as time and task management, project planning, and team coordination.

What's next for ValidAlligator

We are considering refining and optimizing the HTML Validator. We believe that, due to time constraints, it was difficult to create a robust validator. Furthermore, we would like to develop more tools catered towards beginners so they can effectively learn programming.