This repository will walk you through the Mod 1 Pre-work for the Backend program at Turing.
Each day has a folder containing a README.md file with instructions for the section, exercises, and questions. Please complete all the exercises and questions, as well as lessons listed in the section's README.
- Section 1 - SUPER LEARNERS, Terminal and Ruby Foundations
- Section 2 - ASKING QUESTIONS, Conditionals and Methods
- Section 3 - GROWTH MINDSET, Hashes
- Section 4 - HOW YOU USE YOUR TIME, Objects and Classes
- Final Prep - Final Deliverables and Submission
Through completing this pre-work, you can expect to get practice re-inforcing what you learned/are learning in Mod 0, learn more technical content, and deeply reflect on your mindsets and habits and start thinking about which of those mindsets and habits will help you learn to code, and which of those you may need to change.
We will remind you of the best practices that follow from time-to-time, but to ground yourself in the work ahead, read them carefully.
If you are stuck for longer than 30 minutes, know that it is always ok to ask for help! The process of becoming a software developer is difficult, and learning to code is hard. At some point, everyone struggles. Struggle is a normal, healthy part of the learning process - don't give up if you hit a hard spot. If you consistently practice every day and don't take shortcuts, you will be on the path to learning how to code. When you reach out for help, challenge yourself to ask clear questions and use technical vocabulary. Speaking accurately about code is a great way to help lock in technical understanding. Use this guide to learn the optimial way to ask for help when you get stuck!
Process over Product. When asking for help, do your best to seek understanding rather than the answer or the solution. Even if your helper gets you a solution that works, make sure to spend time on why it works, rather than just accepting the solution and moving on.
Type every line of code. One of the best things you can do to set yourself for success is to make sure you type out all the code examples you see in the readings and exercises in this pre-work, do not copy and paste. The more hands-on-keyboard practice you can give yourself, the better. Copying and pasting won't help you solidify these concepts, manually typing all the code in will. This also applies to auto complete features in popular text editors. They are helpful, no doubt, but doing things the hard way at the beginning is a great way to hone your workflow later on.
Details matter. Pay close attention to small details in syntax, spacing, and language. The most detailed oriented you are as you're working, the more reliable and well-crafted your code will be. In programming, being detail oriented helps cut down on buggy code and difficult to use systems. It can also help you notice differences in your code, enabling you to identify typos and mistakes more quickly.
Before we can experiment with coding out the concepts we will learn in Mod0, we need to do a bit more setup to prepare a Ruby-specific development environment.
Follow this guide step-by-step to make sure you have everything you need, then you will be ready to start your first day of work!
Before proceeding, if you have not already, complete the mod-0 environment setup instructions to install Atom, xcode-select, Homebrew, git, and Chrome.
-->Next, we are going to fork this repository that you're reading right now. Forking is when you copy a Github repository to your Github account to make your own changes. Think of it like a fork in the road -- you're about to make changes that differ from the main path.
In this scenario, the Turing Github account owns this backend_mod_1_prework repository. You do not have permission to change anything in this repository, so you need your own copy to work on.
In order to fork the repository, follow these steps:
1. Make sure you are logged in to GitHub (if you are not logged in, log in and come back to this page)
2. You'll want to find this repository's Fork button. Scroll to the top of this webpage... yes, this one that you're reading right now!
4. On the new page, confirm that it is a "forked" copy of the repository, with your username included in the URL and repository name.
Check github help out for more info about forks.
Now that you have forked this repository, the next thing to do is clone your forked repository.
Cloning is when you copy a remote Github repository to your local computer.
$ cd .
// This is a shortcut for `cd ~`, which is "change into the home directory"
$ mkdir turing
$ cd turing
$ mkdir 0module
$ cd 0module
$ git clone <ctrl-v to paste ssh link here >
Cloning into 'backend_mod_1_prework'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 678, done.
remote: Total 678 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 678
Receiving objects: 100% (678/678), 237.94 KiB | 851.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (332/332), done.
$ cd backend_mod_1_prework
$ git status .
// If everything worked correctly, you should see:
On branch main
nothing to commit, working tree clean
From here on out, all the work you do will be in your personal copy of this repository. Throughout Mod 0, we may call this your "prework repository" or "backend prework"... this refers to your forked copy of this backend_mod_1_prework repository that you have just now cloned to your device.
Do NOT work directly in the Github interface or use the Edit button to work directly from the Github version of your prework repository!
Instead, add your work in your text editor (Atom) on your local machine (laptop) - your prework involves using git to track changes and push your work up to Github. We will cover how to do this in Mod 0 AND we give explicit instructions on how to do this in each section of the prework!
Each day's README will walk you through the necessary steps to save your work.
To begin, open your terminal and cd into the section1 directory. Follow the instructions contained in the README.md file, and have fun experimenting!