This repository will guide you through the Mod 1 Pre-work for the Front-End program at Turing. Read this page thoroughly to find the instructions for getting your computer setup and getting started.
Each section has a folder containing a README.md file with instructions and deliverables for the section, exercises, and reflections. You must complete all the exercises and reflections.
- Section 1 - SUPER LEARNERS, Terminal and JavaScript Foundations
- Section 2 - ASKING QUESTIONS, Conditionals and Functions
- Section 3 - GROWTH MINDSET, Arrays and Iteration
- Section 4 - HOW YOU USE YOUR TIME, Objects and Classes
- Final Prep - Final Deliverables and Submission
📒The only material, outside of your computer and an internet connection that you need to complete your pre-work is the JAVASCRIPT & JQUERY: Interactive Front-End Web Development book by John Duckett. You can download it for free here or purchase a hard copy here (or elsewhere).
Please be aware, when page numbers for this book are referenced, it is the page number in the printed book. They don't quite match up with the ways the pages in the PDF are numbered, so make sure to reference the printed page number in the bottom corner of a page in the book.
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're able to write JavaScript that can be run from the command line (you'll be doing this in Mod 1), we need to install Node.js and NPM and it'll be expected that you've run through these instructions.
These setup instructions assume that you have completed the setup for Mod 0, like installing Atom, xcode-select, Homebrew, git, and Chrome. If you haven't done that yet, please see the mod-0 environment setup instructions.
JavaScript was originally intended to be run in the browser (i.e., Chrome). But over time there were a lot of good reasons to allow it to be run server side. Node.js is a framework that allows us to to do just that.
Additionally, there's some very useful "packages" we use while writing code and we cannot install without first installing node.
Open a terminal with Spotlight search (Command + Space) and enter these commands:
$ brew update
Wait a few moments for brew to check its current version and make sure it is ready to be used.
$ brew install node
Wait again, as brew installs node.
Now enter:
$ node -v
This shows us what version of Node.js we are running. You should see something like:
v12.8.0
That same install also installed npm for us which will allow us to download useful packages down the line.
Now enter:
$ npm -v
This shows us what version of NPM we are running. You should see something like:
6.10.3
We will be referencing many terminal commands throughout the pre-work. It is recommended that you practice using terminal commands before getting started. See the terminal.md lesson located in the part1 directory.
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 so that you can make changes to your copy without affecting the original repository.
In this scenario, the Turing GitHub account owns this frontend-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. Scroll to the top of this page that you're reading right now.
4. On the new page, confirm that it says it's the "forked" copy of this repository, with mentions of your username in the URL and repository name.
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.
- Open your terminal
$ 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 'frontend-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 frontend-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 copy of this repository. Other text you read here might refer to this as the "prework repository" or "frontend prework", and they all refer to your forked copy of this frontend-mod-1-prework repository.
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 sections README will walk you through the steps you need to take to save your work.
To start, in your terminal, cd into the section1 directory. Follow the instructions contained in the README.md file, and have a great time learning and exploring!