Re: Godbolt for use in Academia

[Matt Godbolt]

Hi there!

Compiler Explorer is an open source project and as such all its information is publicly available. The majority of information is on GitHub: https://github.com/compiler-explorer/compiler-explorer/ is the main repository.

Compiler Explorer has a (hopefully) comprehensive privacy policy ( http://godbolt.org/#privacy ) should you choose to use the public site. If you want to host it locally, it's pretty straightforward to run a simple internal-only server: https://github.com/compiler-explorer/compiler-explorer/#running-a-local-instance has the instructions for Linux. Configuring it locally is more complex than we'd like, but there's some information in the docs directory.

If you're running on the public site, we use as comprehensive-as-we-can-make-it sandboxing to prevent security exploits and cross-talk between compilations. If you're running your own site locally, then you'll need to look into solutions like nsjail and firejail; whose configuration you can see in the `etc/config` directory. We can help with that if you need it

Almost everything about the public site is open source, including all the configuration of the infrastructure (https://github.com/compiler-explorer/infra)

I hope that covers the security side of things.

In terms of accessibility I'm afraid we're very much "as-is". We've not tried to make the site especially accessible, though we support colour-blind-friendly colour palettes in the options. We'd gladly accept help on making this a better experience for all people.

Please let me know if there's anything else I can help with! I know several universities are already using the site for teaching - and the more the merrier!

All the best, Matt

On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 2:12 PM Anderson, Shane <sha...@middlebury.edu> wrote:

Greetings!

 

We have a professor who is interested in using Godbolt to teach a class to CS students.  We normally have a checklist of items we like to assess for software which we will run – either in the cloud or on premises.  In this case we are thinking about using it on premises. 

 

Two of the more important areas are security, and the other at this time is Accessibility.  I realize that this is likely very heavy-handed, but I am trying to at least determine if there is any material available that would allow us to assess this software from these two lenses.  Anything you can point to that will assist would be greatly appreciated. 

 

In closing I would like to say I love this tool.  I wish it was available back in the day when I was taking C Language courses in my undergraduate degree program.  

 

Thanks.

 

Shane

 

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Shane Anderson

Director of Enterprise Architecture

Information Technology Services
Middlebury College

Telephone: 203.314.7661
Pronouns : he/him/his

 

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Matt

(he/him)