ezdebugging

Made By

Ben Nguyen, Nelson Nguyen, Claire Zhang

Inspiration

We first began thinking about making this project after going through TreeHacks 2023's problem statements. One in the Education section stood out to us:

How can technology make coding and development easier for beginners? - Ian Hodge, Warp

A problem we wanted to tackle is that coding is hard, especially for a beginner. It is intimidating to think about trying to develop a full-stack web app when one can barely write a line of code without making a syntax error. Someone who is new to programming can often get stuck in so-called "tutorial hell" and give up their dream of becoming a software engineer too soon. Our app helps beginners learn C++ syntax in a fun way, learn how to read and debug code, and learn how to identify and fix common syntax, logic, or runtime errors that can appear while they program.

We tend to forget that baby steps still move us forward.

Even for people experienced with coding, sometimes there's that one bug that you just can't wrap your head around. That's where our app comes in. You can take a mental break from figuring out the hard bug and instead go back to the easy basics. Keep your mind in the debugging mindset, build your confidence, and return to the other bug when you are ready.

What it does

On the Solve page, users can solve common syntax and logic errors that arise when programming in C++. If they ever get stuck, there are hints to help them.

On the Contribute page, users can add their own problems to the database, allowing for an ever-growing problem set to practice from. Through this, the app can also be used as a tool for teachers in Introductory Computer Science classes to have their students practice problems that might appear on an assessment.

How we built it

Retool for the frontend and Firebase for the backend

Challenges we ran into

1. Retool doesn't allow for same-time collaboration on the same page, so we had to split up tasks to make good use of time.
2. Figuring out which Retool components to use in order to display lines of code with indentation.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

1. Submitting a project for our first hackathon!
2. Learning new technologies (Retool and Firebase) in a short timeframe
3. Meeting cool people
4. Having fun

What we learned

1. Collaborating as a team to create an app
2. Asking for help from the experts (shoutout to Christina from Retool)
3. How to use Retool and Firebase

What's next for ezdebugging

1. Expand to more programming languages beyond C++
2. Add syntax highlighting
3. Add a way to approve or report problems/more data validation
4. Integrate with OpenAI to have unlimited problems instead of querying from a limited dataset

Built With

• firebase
• javascript
• retool