Open-Course Development with LiaScript (... Or Markdown on Steroids)

Markdown is an ideal tool for documenting and thus a suitable format for Open Educational Resources, but as a static markup language it is also boring. So the idea was born to create a DSL that is based on Markdown but intended to be used for developing online courses, that look like screen-cast with various interactive elements. Starting this project with Elm, it was more or less an explorative journey, with rapid changes in the DSL and the interpreter that were guided by the Elm-compiler. Code-blocks are now executable and editable, quizzes can be defined in various ways, images are generated from ASCII-art, effects and transitions combined with text2speech that enable interactive storytelling, among other features. But the course itself is still a valid Markdown document that can be edited by any ordinary person, even without programming skills. The interpreter build around the Elm-architecture hides all complexity, such as code evaluation, internal message routing, lazy parsing, etc.