Core (engine) of musicblocks-v4

The core of the new Music Blocks (v4) application.

Tech Stack

This core of Music Blocks v4 uses TypeScript 4. In addition, Jest shall be used for testing. Webpack has been configured to transpile and bundle the source code, for deployment on a web browser.

Contributing

Programmers, please follow these general guidelines for contributions.

New Contributors

Use the discussions tab at the top of the repository to:

Ask questions you’re wondering about.
Share ideas.
Engage with other community members.

Feel free. But, please don't spam :p.

Keep in Mind

Your contributions need not necessarily have to address any discovered issue. If you encounter any, feel free to add a fix through a PR, or create a new issue ticket.
Use labels on your issues and PRs.
Do not spam with lots of PRs with little changes.
If you are addressing a bulk change, divide your commits across multiple PRs, and send them one at a time. The fewer the number of files addressed per PR, the better.
Communicate effectively. Go straight to the point. You don't need to address anyone using 'sir'. Don't write unnecessary comments; don't be over-apologetic. There is no superiority hierarchy. Every single contribution is welcome, as long as it doesn't spam or distract the flow.
Write useful, brief commit messages. Add commit descriptions if necessary. PR name should speak about what it is addressing and not the issue. In case a PR fixes an issue, use fixes #ticketno or closes #ticketno in the PR's comment. Briefly explain what your PR is doing.
Always test your changes extensively before creating a PR. There's no sense in merging broken code. If a PR is a work in progress (WIP), convert it to draft. It'll let the maintainers know it isn't ready for merging.
Read and revise the concepts about programming constructs you're dealing with. You must be clear about the behavior of the language or compiler/transpiler. See JavaScript docs and TypeScript docs.
If you have a question, do a web search first. If you don't find any satisfactory answer, then ask it in a comment. If it is a general question about Music Blocks, please use the new discussions tab on top the the repository, or the Sugar-dev Devel <sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org> mailing list. Don't ask silly questions (unless you don't know it is silly ;p) before searching it on the web.

Code Quality Notes

Sticking to TypeScript conventions, use camelCase for filenames, CAPITALCASE for constants, camelCase for identifiers, and PascalCase for classes. Linting has been strictly configured. A super-linter is configured to lint check the files on a pull request. In fact, the TypeScript watcher or build will throw errors/warnings if there are linting problems. This has been done to maintain code quality.
If a PR is addressing an issue, prefix the branch name with the issue number. For example, say a PR is addressing issue 100, a branch name could be 100-patch-foobar.
Meaningfully separate code across commits. Don't create arbitrary commits. In case it gets dirty, please do an interactive rebase with squash and reword to improve.
Follow conventional commit messages specification to help issue tracking. More often than not, take time to add meaningful commit descriptions.
At any point, when new components are created or existing components are modified, unit tests (passing) reflecting the changes need to be part of the PR before being reviewed.
Two workflows — a Continuous Integration (CI) and a Linter (Super Linter) has been configured. Each PR must pass the checks before being reviewed.
For any new functions/methods or classes, add extensive TSDoc documentation.
Each PR needs to have supporting unit tests covering all (or as much practical) use cases to qualify for review. In case testing is done via some non-standard method, adequate description of the method/s need/s to be specified in the PR body.

Please note there is no need to ask permission to work on an issue. You should check for pull requests linked to an issue you are addressing; if there are none, then assume nobody has done anything. Begin to fix the problem, test, make your commits, push your commits, then make a pull request. Mention an issue number in the pull request, but not the commit message. These practices allow the competition of ideas (Sugar Labs is a meritocracy).

Setup Development Environment

This project is containerized using docker. Therefore, it requires docker to be installed on the development machine.

Setup docker.
- For Linux, install Docker Engine.
- For Windows or Mac (x86_64 / amd64), install Docker Desktop.
Open a teminal and navigate to working directory (where the source code will reside).
Git Clone (additional installation of Git required on Windows) this repository using
```
git clone https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks-v4-lib.git
```
Build docker image and launch docker network.

Note: A built initial development image has been published to Sugar Labs GitHub Container Registry (GHCR), which can be pulled directly, so you don't have to build it again. Pull using
```
docker pull ghcr.io/sugarlabs/musicblocks:initial
```
Nagivate inside the project directory and launch the docker network using
```
docker-compose up -d
```
If you haven't pulled the image from the GitHub Container Registry (GHCR), it'll first build the image using the Dockerfile, then launch the docker network. If an image already exists locally, it'll not be rebuilt. To force a rebuild from the Dockerfile before launching the docker network, add the --build flag.
In another terminal, run
```
docker attach musicblocks
```
The Linux Debian 10.7 (buster) shell in the docker container named musicblocks is spawned and standard input/output is connected to the terminal.

Node (Node.js Runtime), npm (Node Package Manager), tsc (TypeScript Compiler), and ts-node (Node executable for TypeScript) should be installed. Check using
```
node --version && npm --version && tsc --version && ts-node --version
```
Output should look like
```
v14.15.3
6.14.10
Version 4.1.3
v9.1.1
```
To shut down the docker network, run (in the terminal where you ran docker-compose up -d)
```
docker-compose down
```
To install all the dependencies (in package.json), run
```
npm ci
```
Miscellaneous commands.
- To launch the Node runtime, run
```
node
```
- To run a JavaScript file, say file.js, run
```
node file.js
```
- To transpile a TypeScipt file, say file.ts, to JavaScript, run
```
tsc file.ts
```
  This transpilation produces file.js.
- To run a TypeScript file directly, say file.ts, run
```
ts-node file.ts
```
Configured scripts.
- For testing, run
```
npm run test
```
  To run a specific path
```
npm run test -- "test/path"
```
  To run in watch mode
```
npm run test -- "test/path" --watch
```
- For generating a production build, run
```
npm run build
```
- For checking linting problems
```
npm run lint
```
  To autofix fixable problems
```
npm run lint -- --fix
```
Note: If you're running using Docker Desktop on Windows or Mac, you might experience longer execution times for these scripts. This happens due to cross-file-system communication. Duration varies across machines; duration primarily depends on hard drive read/write speed.

Editor

All code is just plain text, so it doesn't really matter what you use to edit them. However, using modern, feature-rich IDEs/text-editors like Atom, Brackets, WebStorm, Sublime Text, Visual Studio Code, etc. makes life way easier. These come with a directory-tree explorer, and an integrated terminal, at the very least, while having support for plugins/extensions to expand their functionality.

Some (non-exhaustive) benefits of using these are syntax highlighting, warning/error annotations, formatting, auto-refactoring, tons of customizable keyboard shortcuts, etc.

Visual Studio Code (VSCode) is currently the most-popular code editor for reasons like being lightweight, cleaner, large marketplace of extensions, integrated Source Control features, debugger, remote explorer support, Regular Expression (regex) based find/replace, etc.

In fact, a workspace configuration file for vscode.vscode/settings.json has already been added. Recommended extensions for this project are Babel JavaScript, Docker, ESLint, Git Graph, GitLens, markdownlint, Prettier, SCSS IntelliSense, and SVG.

All that, however, shouldn't necessarily stop you from using Emacs, Nano, or Vim, if that's your poison :D. Happy coding!

ricknjacky/musicblocks-v4-lib