Raspberry Pi Foundation Makes Its In-House In-Browser Python Code Editor Open Source
Newly-opened browser-based IDE launches with Python support, with HTML and CSS to follow in a future release.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced the opening of its in-browser Code Editor's own code, mere months after launching the project — making the front-end permissively licensed and the back-end a reciprocal copyleft project.
"A couple of months ago we announced that you can test the online text-based Code Editor we're building to help young people aged seven and older learn to write code," the Raspberry Pi Foundation's Phil Howell explains. "Now we've made the code for the Editor open source so people can repurpose and contribute to it. Python is the first programming language our Code Editor supports because it's popular in schools, CoderDojos, and Code Clubs, as well as in industry. We'll soon be adding support for web development languages (HTML/CSS)."
The Python code editor was launched in public preview back in April, as part of the Foundation's efforts to reduce barriers to computing education by simplifying the process of writing and testing a Python program — making it so there's nothing to install, but simply a browser-based web app which includes everything a beginner needs.
"Our vision is that every young person develops the knowledge, skills, and confidence to use digital technologies effectively, and to be able to critically evaluate these technologies and confidently engage with technological change," Howell says. "We're part of a global community that shares that vision, so we’ve made the Editor available as an open-source project. That means other projects and organizations focused on helping people learn about coding and digital technologies can benefit from the work."
The editor is based around Skulpt, an in-browser Python implementation, with a React front-end and a Ruby on Rails back-end. Other projects used to build the editor include CodeMirror for the text editor panel and PostgreSQL for data storage. The front-end and back-end are made available under two distinct licenses: the front-end is licensed under the permissive Apache 2.0 license, while the back-end is under the reciprocal GNU Affero General Public License 3 — and requires contributors to provide the Foundation with a right of reuse for any submitted code.
More information, including links to the GitHub repositories, is available in Howell's announcement.
