|
| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: Add New Guides/Tutorials |
| 3 | +layout: multipage-overview |
| 4 | +num: 7 |
| 5 | +partof: scala-contribution |
| 6 | +overview-name: Contributing to Scala |
| 7 | +--- |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +## Why Contribute New Learning Material? |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +As [Heather Miller writes](/contribute.html), contributing to [docs.scala-lang.org](https://docs.scala-lang.org) is |
| 12 | +critical to making Scala accessible to newcomers, experience programmers, and anyone who is curious. |
| 13 | +It is also a fantastic way to contribute for anyone who is comfortable using Scala, but maybe does not want to get |
| 14 | +involved with complex tools like the compiler. |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | +## Architecture |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +This documentation website is backed by an open-source [github repository](https://github.com/scala/docs.scala-lang), |
| 19 | +and is always contribution-ready. |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +### Content |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +Currently, the _types_ of documentation supported in this repository are: |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +- **Guides/Overviews**: Definitive guides/overviews of specific language features. Often long, detailed documents, |
| 26 | + often produced by members of the Scala team. An example is the excellent [Collections][collections-overview] overview. |
| 27 | +- **Tutorials**: Bite-size, example-rich, and concise articles meant to get a developer up to speed quickly. |
| 28 | +- **Cheatsheets**: Quick reference of Scala syntax and behaviors. |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +### Implementation |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +The website is statically generated from [Markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) source using |
| 33 | +[Jekyll](https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll), and hosted on [GitHub Pages](https://pages.github.com/). |
| 34 | +This workflow was chosen so as to make it as easy as possible for core committers and the community alike |
| 35 | +to produce HTML documentation, and as easy as possible to publish it in a central location. |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | +The markdown syntax being used supports [Maruku](https://github.com/bhollis/maruku) extensions, and has automatic |
| 38 | +syntax highlighting, without the need for any tags. |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +Additionally [mdoc](https://github.com/scalameta/mdoc) is used during pull requests to validate Scala code blocks. |
| 41 | +To use this feature you must use the backtick notation as documented by mdoc. Note that only validation is done. |
| 42 | +The output files from mdoc are not used in the building of the tutorial. Use `mdoc` or `mdoc:fail` for your code blocks. |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +## Submitting Docs |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +For one to contribute a document, one must simply |
| 47 | +[fork](https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo/) the |
| 48 | +[repo](https://github.com/scala/docs.scala-lang), write their article in |
| 49 | +[Markdown](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax) (example below), and submit a pull request. That's it. |
| 50 | +Likely after some edits and discussion, your document will be made live |
| 51 | +on [docs.scala-lang.org](https://docs.scala-lang.org). |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | + --- |
| 54 | + layout: overview |
| 55 | + title: My Awesome Title |
| 56 | + --- |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | + ## An h2 Header in Markdown |
| 59 | + |
| 60 | + And a paragraph, with a [link](https://www.scala-lang.org). |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | +One can contribute code in a markdown document by either |
| 63 | + - indenting it by 4 spaces |
| 64 | + - surrounding by triple backticks, as shown below |
| 65 | + - in-line by putting backticks around it, e.g. `def foo`. |
| 66 | + |
| 67 | + ```scala |
| 68 | + println("hello") |
| 69 | + ``` |
| 70 | + |
| 71 | +Everything else is automatically generated for you; tables of contents, and most index pages. And of course, the |
| 72 | +styling is already taken care of for you. |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | +### Criteria for Docs to be Accepted |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +The goal of this documentation repository is to be tighter and more organized than other community-driven documentation platforms, like wikis. As such, any document pulled in for inclusion on |
| 77 | +[docs.scala-lang.org](https://docs.scala-lang.org) must: |
| 78 | + |
| 79 | +- **"fit in"** to the repository ( _i.e.,_ it should not be a complete duplicate of another article), |
| 80 | +- **be polished** it must be thorough, complete, correct, organized, and "article-like" (personal programming notes |
| 81 | +don't quite fit.) |
| 82 | +- **be maintained** if the document might require revisions from time to time, be prepared to keep it up to date, or |
| 83 | +nominate someone to take ownership. |
| 84 | + |
| 85 | +If you have something you're thinking about contributing, or that you're thinking about writing in order to contribute |
| 86 | +-- we'd love to consider it! Please don't hesitate to use GitHub issues and pull requests and the |
| 87 | +\#scala-contributors room [on Discord](https://discord.com/invite/scala) for any questions, concerns, |
| 88 | +clarifications, etc. |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | +## Document Templates |
| 91 | + |
| 92 | +> **Note:** These templates will soon change slightly as a result of necessary refactoring. |
| 93 | +
|
| 94 | +### Guides/Overviews |
| 95 | + |
| 96 | +A guide or an overview that can be logically placed on **one** page must be placed in the directory |
| 97 | +`_overviews/RELEVANT-CATEGORY/_posts` with the file name in the format `YYYY-MM-dd-title-separated-by-dashes.md`, |
| 98 | +and header: |
| 99 | + |
| 100 | + --- |
| 101 | + layout: overview |
| 102 | + title: YOUR TITLE |
| 103 | + --- |
| 104 | + |
| 105 | +The rest of the document should, of course, be written in [Markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown). |
| 106 | + |
| 107 | +At the moment, `RELEVANT-CATEGORY` corresponds to only a single category, "core," because we are currently focusing on |
| 108 | +building up documentation of core libraries. However, expect more categories here in the future. |
| 109 | + |
| 110 | +If your document consists of **multiple** pages, like the [Collections][collections-overview] overview, an ordering |
| 111 | +must be specified, by numbering documents in their logical order with `num`, and a name must be assigned to the |
| 112 | +collection of pages using `partof`. For example, the following header might be used for a document in the collections |
| 113 | +overview: |
| 114 | + |
| 115 | + --- |
| 116 | + layout: overview |
| 117 | + title: YOUR TITLE |
| 118 | + |
| 119 | + partof: collections |
| 120 | + num: 10 |
| 121 | + --- |
| 122 | + |
| 123 | +A **single** document in the collection must contain a tag in the header, `outof`, that indicates the total number of |
| 124 | +documents in the large overview. Putting it on the last page in the overview is often best: |
| 125 | + |
| 126 | + --- |
| 127 | + layout: overview |
| 128 | + title: YOUR TITLE |
| 129 | + |
| 130 | + partof: collections |
| 131 | + num: 15 |
| 132 | + outof: 15 |
| 133 | + --- |
| 134 | + |
| 135 | +Index pages, such as [docs.scala-lang.org/overviews/index.html](https://docs.scala-lang.org/overviews/index.html) are |
| 136 | +generated, by reading data from a configuration file, such as `_data/overviews.yml`, so your overview should be |
| 137 | +placed into a category there. |
| 138 | + |
| 139 | +### Tutorials |
| 140 | + |
| 141 | +At the moment, tutorials are written the same as Guides/Overviews, except that their link must be added to |
| 142 | +the metadata of `/tutorials.md`. e.g. for the [Scala With Maven][scala-with-maven] tutorial, the |
| 143 | +metadata of `/tutorials.md` looks like |
| 144 | + |
| 145 | + --- |
| 146 | + layout: inner-page-parent |
| 147 | + title: Tutorials |
| 148 | + |
| 149 | + tutorials: |
| 150 | + ... |
| 151 | + - title: "Scala with Maven" |
| 152 | + url: "/tutorials/scala-with-maven.html" |
| 153 | + description: "Create a Scala project with Maven." |
| 154 | + icon: code |
| 155 | + --- |
| 156 | + |
| 157 | +For a single-page tutorial, the typical directory to place them in is `_overviews/tutorials`. |
| 158 | + |
| 159 | +### Cheatsheets |
| 160 | + |
| 161 | +For now, cheatsheets are assumed to be in the form of tables. To contribute a cheatsheet, one must simply produce their |
| 162 | +cheatsheet as a Markdown table, with the following header: |
| 163 | + |
| 164 | + --- |
| 165 | + layout: cheatsheet |
| 166 | + title: YOUR TITLE |
| 167 | + by: YOUR NAME |
| 168 | + about: SOME TEXT ABOUT THE CHEAT SHEET. |
| 169 | + --- |
| 170 | + |
| 171 | +### Code blocks |
| 172 | + |
| 173 | +The site build process uses [mdoc](https://scalameta.org/mdoc/) to typecheck |
| 174 | +code snippets in markdown. This is a great way to ensure the code snippets that |
| 175 | +you're including typecheck and are valid. Here are a few quick types to get |
| 176 | +started. |
| 177 | + |
| 178 | +To get started, add `mdoc` after `scala` when you are creating a |
| 179 | +code block. The `mdoc` modifier here will make sure that `mdoc` runs the code |
| 180 | +snippet and ensures that it's valid. |
| 181 | + |
| 182 | + ```scala mdoc |
| 183 | + val a = 1 |
| 184 | + ``` |
| 185 | +If you have a snippet that you expect to fail, you can also account for this by |
| 186 | +using `mdoc:fail` for a compile error `mdoc:crash` for a runtime-error. |
| 187 | + |
| 188 | + ```scala mdoc:fail |
| 189 | + val b: String = 3 // won't compile |
| 190 | + ``` |
| 191 | +Keep in mind that a single file is all compiled as a single unit, so you can't |
| 192 | +redefine a variable that was defined above in another code snippet. _However_ |
| 193 | +there are a couple ways to get around this. Firstly, you can use the `mdoc:nest` |
| 194 | +modifier with will wrap the snippet in a `scala.Predef.locally{...}`. This will |
| 195 | +essentially "hide" the snippet from the others. Another way around this is to |
| 196 | +use the `mdoc:reset` modifier, which _resets_ and forgets about everything up |
| 197 | +above. Here is an example using the various modifiers. |
| 198 | + |
| 199 | + ```scala mdoc |
| 200 | + import java.time.Instant |
| 201 | + |
| 202 | + def now() = Instant.now() |
| 203 | + object Foo {} |
| 204 | + ``` |
| 205 | + |
| 206 | + ```scala mdoc:nest |
| 207 | + case class Foo(a: Int) // conflicts with Foo above, but it's nested so it's fine |
| 208 | + ``` |
| 209 | + |
| 210 | + ```scala mdoc |
| 211 | + val a = s"The time is ${now()}" // still have access to the now method from above |
| 212 | + ``` |
| 213 | + ```scala mdoc:reset |
| 214 | + case class Foo(a: String) // forget the previous Foo's and start fresh |
| 215 | + ``` |
| 216 | + ```scala mdoc |
| 217 | + val myFoo = Foo("hi") // now we only have access to the last Foo |
| 218 | + ``` |
| 219 | + |
| 220 | +[collections-overview]: {% link _overviews/collections-2.13/introduction.md %} |
| 221 | +[scala-with-maven]: {% link _overviews/tutorials/scala-with-maven.md %} |
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