Beginners Guide to Blawx
Welcome to the Beginner's Guide to Blawx!
What is Blawx?
Blawx is a web-based, user-friendly tool for Rules as Code. It is free, open source software provided under the MIT license by Jason Morris.
It is alpha software currently under active development, intended for experimentation and teaching in Rules as Code. Do not use Blawx for real-world, production purposes.
What is Rules As Code?
Briefly, Rules as Code is an approach to public administration that argues we can improve how rules like legislation and regulations are designed, drafted, and implemented by writing them in natural languages like English and French, and also encoding them in languages that can be used by computers.
Who is this Beginner's Guide for?
This guide is written for people who are interested in learning about encoding legal knowledge in Blawx. It assumes no experience with programming.
What does the Beginner's Guide Cover?
The Beginner's Guide is a short introduction to the four steps of using Blawx for Rules as Code:
- Enter Legal Text
- Encode Rules
- Test Your Code
- Deploy Your Code
It will walk you through the process of encoding a small, imaginary piece of legislation called the Rock Paper Scissors Act.
It will not make you an expert Blawx user, and it will not even show you all of Blawx features. It is intended only to give the reader an intuition as to what Blawx is, how Blawx is used, and the advantages that might come from using it.
The Beginner's Guide can also be used as a tutorial by creating a new project in Blawx and following along with the four steps in the guide.
If you're ready to get started, let's go.