DEV Community: Shashi

"Code Blocks" Google doc add-on for better code documentation

Shashi — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 05:40:38 +0000

Hi all - Ran into a Google Doc add-on called "Code Blocks" which neatly formats any source code. Makes it easier to read and can be used for a lot of different reasons including documentation. It comes with different options for the language + has color themes that allow you to customize it as required.

In case folks have not heard of it, here it is.

You can download/install this add-on to your Google Doc from here:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/code-blocks/ebieibfdjgmmimpldgengceekpfefmfd

If you have/do use some other equally good or better tool for code documentation please post it in the comments. Happy to learn!

Cheers,

Shashi

Pushing data from Google doc sidebar to a Google sheet

Shashi — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 07:32:15 +0000

I recently completed a research based assignment for a course I am doing. The paper was written completely as a Google doc and submitted via TurnItIn. As you know, such papers require tons of referencing to backup the claims we are making in them. Often times keeping track of these resources – books, websites, journals, videos – can be hard. In the past I have tried organizing them in a separate Google sheet for later perusal/citation but it is always cumbersome to keep switching back and forth between browser tabs to make this happen. I know there are ready made apps for this kind of stuff but hey, where is the fun in that? This challenge was forcing me to code in Google docs, which I rarely do. So I took it up.

I decided to try writing a script that accepts my reference entries from a Google document and pressing a button would automatically send that entry into a Google sheet. More entries would come in the same way and the data in the sheet would keep getting appended.

Here’s the catch though. I wanted it neatly organized too so that I can manage it better later for citations. So the Google sheet had 4 columns, each titled by the kind of resource it was. The script was supposed to identify what kind of resource is coming in and put it in the right column accordingly.

The requirements

In Computer Science one of the core things we teach students is to collect end-user requirements. So applying it on myself, I made the following notes:

A sidebar should open in the Google doc that allows for accepting of reference entries.
The sidebar, coded in HTML, should contain a basic form that has a submit button whose job it is to push the value into the sheet.
The form should also have a classifier (like a dropdown) that identifies what kind of resource it was.
Based on the choice made in the form, that entry would then automatically go to the respective pre-set column on the Google sheet.
Bonus: To avoid keeping the Google sheet open, see if a published version of it can be embedded into the sidebar HTML.

The code

The first step was to go to the Google document here the references will be created. Once there, I went to "Script Editor" under "Tools".

The code has two files: code.gs (the Google Script file that captures the data from this file to send to the Google Sheet) and sendForm.html which contains the form where user inputs the data.

code.gs

This google script file has three functions. They are documented below.

sendForm.html

The second file is the HTML service that interacts with server-side Google script functions.

The output

Output GIF

Concluding thoughts

So, the solution works. The citations still need to be created depending on the type (APA, MLA, Harvard etc) but this kind of collection works for me to organize myself.
The HTML form can be modified to accommodate more useful information such as : context, purpose, author info. etc In a long spanning research project such a collection could prove quite useful.
I tried embedding the Google sheet onto the HTML form on the sidebar but it looked very busy and results did not update as quickly as I’d have hoped. But a link to the sheet can exist on the HTML page.
A version 2,0 of such a solution could potentially include direct referencing too so that ready to use citations are created depending on the type of citation required. This obviously means more code that parses the text and looks at author, organization, content type. Something to develop as a bigger project perhaps.

Encouraging more girls to take Computer Science in schools

Shashi — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 09:31:08 +0000

Hello everyone - In my 14 years of teaching Computer Science, the total # of girls who were in my classes was about 10-15. My class sizes weren't too large (typically about 10-15) since they were electives. So that was like 1-2 girls per academic year. Things are slightly better now since they are categorized as a Science so kids can choose CS instead of, say, Physics or Chem.

As a discussion point I wanted to get some insight from female developers (men are welcome to chime in too!) on this site as to what their journeys have been like. What advice or suggestions would you give to academic institutions, K-12 educational systems on how to encourage, involve, more women into computing? What are some insights you can provide wrt girls graduating with a strong foundation in CS (with coding proficiency in 1-2 languages) and their potential in the job markets, entrepreneurship possibilities, startups etc? What should we as academic centers be doing more of/less of?

In schools, we are always looking for ways to engage more girls in the CS conversation and I have found that despite initiatives like Code.Org and Hour of code etc, the # of girls graduating high school (and I only have International/IB schools as a reference point) with a CS major are not yet at par with those of boys. This has led some schools to stop offering CS since there are still a lot of misconceptions connected to it wrt mastery of math,advanced skill sets etc. I realize some of it is perhaps true but given that CS courses typically start from scratch, everyone is a beginner in many ways.

Hopefully all this made sense? I look forward to some good conversations on this topic.

--Shashi

PS: Just as a way to celebrate them here, I have found in my teaching experience that girls have generally been the more organized developers with excellent reflection, commenting skills with coding. :)

Text to Emoji converter using G-Script

Shashi — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 04:42:37 +0000

Did something I found fun. So sharing it here. If there are teachers on here they can think of ways to use this as a model to teach different coding concepts to students.

I designed a small Google script code that accepts plain text and converts it into Emoji text. Basic steps below.

STEP 1: Setting up the Google sheet.

I have 2 sheets. One for the inputs/generated output and another for the lookup which has the word > equivalent emoji. This second sheet is sorted by word so that Binary Search can be implemented for the search.

SHEET 1

SHEET 2

STEP 2: The code

The code comprises of two functions.

convertTexttoEmoji () : This is the main function that analyses the input text and outputs the converted emoji text.
getEmoji() : This function is called by convertTexttoEmoji() and does the heavy work of looking up matching emoji icons for every word. This is the function which uses a Binary Search for this operation.

convertTexttoEmoji ()

getEmoji()

STEP 3: The result

CONCLUSIONS:

The words being looked at are absolute matches (including case-sensitivity). So if I were to type "bike" instead of "biking" it will not work. Solution? Add more words to the data set with a comma and do a second level look up for similar words + force lower case on them for consistency check.
Splitting this text into an array was easy but handling punctuation in the output was a little tricky due to the spaces.
The emoji database itself is limited so a much larger data set might take longer to run/execute.
Emojis look different on different devices. So a mountain may look perfect on your device and may look like a big ugly triangle on some other device. Testing it with various devices is a good idea!

From a teacher's perspective

Shashi — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 05:52:32 +0000

Hello all,

This is my first post on Dev.to. To give the context of software development an academic angle, I wish to share some thoughts on my journey both as a teacher and a developer.

I started teaching Computer Science in 2000. This was an era of no Google, no YouTube, no StackOverflow etc. Our main programming language was C++ (a language I hugely admire to this day) and kids worked on different kinds of solutions to understand the ins and outs of coding and software design. Like any subject, our nascent discipline relied heavily on textbooks. As is the case, the examples and scenarios in hard copy were often either too simple or too complex. Finding the right match to use in the classroom (especially with first time programmers) was a constant challenge. This led to me having to create lot of original material that I constantly shared with the classes.

With time, and as the Internet stretched its legs in a couple of years, a class website was born. This became a great way for 24/7 dynamic and updated information. Students began contributing to it with original code snippets of their work. They began discussing code (like we are doing now on Dev.to) with one another via discussion forums. They learnt best practices from each other about good quality code and documentation. Best case scenarios were shared by one and all with run time logs.

As a developer, I continued working on platforms like Visual Basic, ASP/with Access DB and other such for internal systems my schools needed. It was a great way to look at solutions work outside the classroom context since it came with its own set of hybrid challenges.

Mid 2000s Java became the official language for our CS program. With that came the need for more UI presence in the work students were doing. We worked with tools like SWING and AWT. Kids got better with their internal documentation. Online resources had gotten better too. Lot more videos, more interactive discussion forums, wikis etc. Students felt better prepared to get help outside the classroom. We were also introducing LEGO Mindstorms in classes so kids were programming robots to do things. We also had Flash going on, so scripting was taking on different avenues in animation too. That period, in my opinion, was most transformative for the world of development.

The reason I wanted to make this my first post was to create a context for developers here who, I am sure, at some point were students themselves. The content you share here has the potential to reach scores of minds who might be struggling with their CS classes. So I write this to both appreciate and acknowledge the power of spaces such as Dev.to because of their strong support structure and potential reach. I know my students back then would have found such resources immensely helpful. Quite frankly, so would their teacher. :)

Keep up the good work! Keep calm and code on.

shashi