new course build process

[Alex Chaffee]

After a brainstorming session with Robert, and a few hours of hacking, I implemented a new system for building Test-First Teaching courses. It's outlined in the README, but basically, individual teachers can now define custom classes via a YAML file. They choose what chapters go in, and name a github repo to push the result to, for students to clone. It even numbers the chapters so they show up in the right order, too!

The default course is named "learn_ruby" and it pushes to g...@github.com:alexch/learn_ruby.git (since that's the repo I had permission to create). Upcoming classes can use whatever name and repo and github owner the teacher likes, and if Sarah makes g...@github.com:ultrasaurus/learn_ruby.git and gives me permission, I'll switch the default course repo to use that instead.

When you edit chapter contents, or edit a course file (e.g. to add or rearrange a chapter), you can regenerate and repush the student repo by running "rake course:push course=ruby-for-dummies" (or whatever you named your course).

Please try it out when you get a chance and tell me of any glitches.

 - A

--
Alex Chaffee - al...@stinky.com - http://alexch.github.com
Stalk me: http://friendfeed.com/alexch | http://twitter.com/alexch | http://alexch.tumblr.com

[Robert Fletcher]

Awesome, thanks Alex!  I'll be putting it to the test this weekend and let you know how it goes.

-Robert