How to use
- Type your query in the orange box at the top, results will appear below as you type
- Click on individual sections to add them to your cart and schedule
- Click on a non-bold semester between the cart and schedule to change semesters
Soda was a course browser for Brown University, which has a very hard-to-use course system called Banner. It replaced Banner's complex interface with a simple search box and instant as-you-type searching. Soda also included a shopping cart and schedule to help students plan their next semester.
It was written in straight HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Brown's courses are gathered with a Python scraper and imported as a huge 6 MB JavaScript file, which GZIPs down to a little over 1 MB and is cached by the browser. Queries are compiled down to a regex and then just run through the huge list of courses. Search speed is not an issue in Chrome and Safari, but feels slower in Firefox.