colindean / nebby

a domain-specific language for describing surveys

Nebby

Nebby is a domain-specific language for describing surveys.

Nebby provides a quick, Ruby-throated way to construct a survey and present the results in an easy-to-understand and easy-to-share way.

by Colin Dean http://cad.cx

Help fund development:

Requirements

• Ruby 1.9+
• Sinatra
• MongoDB

Examples

See example.rb.

N.b. that I have yet to actually write any code for processing this example.

Goals

The primary goal is to get this working as a standalone web site. The workflow would be something like this:

1. gem install bundler duh
2. gem install nebby duh
3. nebby init my_survey creates a nebby installation in directory my_survey
4. edit my_survey.rb to your heart's desire
5. deploy to heroku or duostack or the like
6. share link to survey
7. see results
8. ???
9. profit

Eventually, nebby should be useable as a gem with a sinatra or rails application. sinatra integration is foremost, as standalone nebby will use sinatra. rails is secondary because it will need to meet the robust needs of rails clientele.

Long tail features

• Randomization of recorded answers - optionally omit timestamp of answer
• Randomization of question order - each new respondent gets a randomized order of questions

Prior Art

Surveyor is an existing gem and has a similar DSL. However, its syntax is more procedural whereas nebby's is more block-oriented in the style of many testing frameworks.

However, it's likely that nebby will draw some semblance of influence from Surveyor. Also, I've never used Surveyor.

nebby's Issues

OOTB Question: Sex/gender

• Male
• Female
• Other
• Unspecifed

Option to require captcha

Employ recaptcha.

Progress bar for completion

Show bar or count so that people know how long it is.

OOTB Question: Education level

• Some secondary education (High School)
• Completed secondary education
• Some higher education (College, Vocational training, etc)
• Completed 2-Year Degree
• Completed 4-Year Degree
• Graduate level study (Masters, Ph.D., M.D., J.D.)

OOTB Question: Age range

Default options would something like

• 13-17
• 18-24
• 25-30
• 31-40
• 41-50
• 51-60
• Over 60

Could have options like :by_tens or :by_fives or simply :start, :end, :interval.

OOTB Question: Country picker

ask "Where do you live?" do
  type :country
end

or

country "Where do you live?"

Option to require social login

Have an option to require some kind of login, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, OpenID (Steam, Google, etc.).

Optionally tie login to response, but default is entirely anonymous.