Mod 0 Project - Back End

This repository will guide you through the Mod 0 Project for the Back End program at Turing. Read this page thoroughly to understand the purpose and find the instructions for getting your project setup on your computer.

Each section has a folder containing a README.md file with instructions for the section, exercises, and questions. Please complete all the exercises and reflections.

Project Index

• Section 0 - PREPARING FOR THIS JOURNEY
• Section 1 - ASKING QUESTIONS, Terminal and Ruby Foundations
• Section 2 - GROWTH MINDSET, Conditionals
• Section 3 - HOW YOU SPEND YOUR TIME, Arrays & Hashes
• Final Prep - Final Deliverables and Submission

What to Expect

By completing this project, you will reinforce what you learn in Mod 0, deepen your technical understanding, and reflect on your mindsets and habits. You will also be challenged to consider which of your habits will help you become a software developer and which may hinder your progress.

Best Practices: Learning to Write Code

To ground yourself in the work ahead, read these best practices carefully.

Recognize Unproductive Struggle

If you are stuck for longer than 30 minutes, ask for help! 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.

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 optimal way to ask for help when you get stuck.

Process Over Product

When asking for help, seek understanding rather than just the answer or the solution. Even if your helper gets you a solution that works, your learning opportunity is to ask, "why?"

Type Every Line of Code

Copying and pasting won't help you solidify these concepts, manually typing all the code examples in the exercises will. Do not copy and paste unless instructed. The more hands-on-keyboard practice you can give yourself, the better.

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 catches bugs before they become bugs.

Terminal

We will be referencing many Terminal commands throughout the project. It is recommended that you practice using commands before getting started. See the terminal.md lesson located in the section1 directory. Then, continue to Project Setup.

Project Setup

To set this project up, you are going to fork this repository. 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.

Fork This Repository

In this scenario, the Turing GitHub account owns this mod-0-project-be 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 this repository, follow these steps:

Note that the screenshots for the directions that follow are for a different repository, and may have a slightly different GitHub interface, which changes frequently. Be flexible and use this as a guide.

1. Make sure you are logged in to GitHub (if you are not logged in, first, log in. Then, come back to this page)
2. Scroll to the top of this page that you're reading right now.
3. Click on Fork in the upper right corner of the screen
4. On the new page, confirm you're now on your fork, with your username included in the URL and repository name.

Clone Your Forked Repository

Now that you have your own forked repository—which is your Mod 0 Project—the next thing to do is clone the repository to your computer.

Cloning is a Git operation that allows us to copy a remote Git repository to our local computer. In this case, we're cloning the Git repository from GitHub to your local computer.

1. In YOUR project repository that you just forked, click on Clone or Download
2. If Clone with HTTPS is selected, click on Use SSH
3. Click on the copy icon to copy the SSH link to your clipboard
4. Open the Terminal (command + space and begin typing Terminal) and follow these steps:

Change into your Home directory:

$ cd ~

Make a new directory where you'll organize your Turing work:

$ mkdir turing

Change directories to that new directory:

$ cd turing

Make a new directory for your Mod 0 work, then cd into it:

$ mkdir 0module
$ cd 0module

Clone the Git repository into your current working directory:

$ git clone $(pbpaste)

Don't worry about $(pbpaste) in that last step. It's a Terminal command that pastes the GitHub SSH link you copied to your clipboard earlier (the same thing command + v does)!

You should see output like this:

Cloning into 'mod-0-project-be'...
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.

A new directory was created by Git with all the files from the remote repository on GitHub! Let's cd into your local project repository:

$ cd mod-0-project-be

Next, run this command to double check what remote repository your local repository was cloned from:

$ git remote -v

If you followed these instructions correctly, you should see:

origin	[email protected]:YOUR-GITHUB-USERNAME/mod-0-project-be.git (fetch)
origin	[email protected]:YOUR-GITHUB-USERNAME/mod-0-project-be.git (push)

If you instead see references to [email protected]:turingschool/..., you missed an important step and need to start over.

Do you see an error that's not documented in this section? Something is likely wrong with your computer setup. This is a good opportunity to seek help in your Mod 0 Slack channel.

Important Note: Please Read Carefully

From here on out, all Mod 0 Project work will be completed on your computer using Atom. You will make changes to your local clone of your forked repository. In the project directions, this is referred to as your project repository and Mod 0 Project.

The project involves using Git to "commit" your work and "push" your changes from your local clone to your remote repository (your fork) on GitHub. We also give explicit instructions on how to do this during each section of the project.

Do NOT work directly in the GitHub interface or use the Edit button to work directly from the GitHub version of your project repository.

Also Important

Does the Git and GitHub process we just completed feel like a lot? Don't stress, because it is. Throughout Mod 0, you will get plenty of practice with Git and GitHub—which are different but related tools.

The expectation by the end of Mod 0 is that you are familiar with why and how we use these tools in software development.

Get Started

Each section's README will walk you through the steps you need to take to save your work.

To start, in your Terminal, cd into the section0 directory. Follow the instructions contained in the README.md file, and have a great time learning and exploring!