Prework (For Non-Developers)

If Version Control, Git and the Bash shell are all new to you, start with this page.

From here, the next step is Prework - For All Students.

Bash

Watch Hallden. "Linux Commands You Need to Know" - 12 minutes. Can probly put it on 2x playback without missing much. Keep an eye out for these commands:

• ls and its '-l', '-a', '-r', and '-t' options
• cd - change directory
• mkdir - 'make directory'
• pwd - print working directory
• rm and its -r and -f options. Also rmdir.
• mv - move files/dirs
• cp - copy files

Not in this video, but worth knowing:

• grep - 'get regular expression and print' - very powerful, esp. with -r, -i, and/or -l
• cat - 'concatenate' - see file contents

Also, these key concepts are essential to Linux:

• Environment Variables, especially the PATH environment variable.
• Standard Input (STDIN), Standard Output (STDOUT), Standard Error (STDERR)
• Pipes (that is, the vertical bar, |) and I/O Redirection (e.g., <, >, <<, >>, 2>&1).
• Shell config files: .bash_profile and .bashrc (for the Bash shell).

A summary of commands covered in the above videos is here.

Why version control, and why Git

• Watch Colt Steele. "Learn Git in 15 minutes" - comes with a transcript and covers the right stuff in the terminal.
• Watch Fireship Learning. "Git it? How to use Git and Github" - 12 minutes. Covers the right stuff and does it in vscode in the terminal. A bonus is that it shows the fork / clone idea, which will be used in Git Basics.

Overview of the website

This course works with source files for a static website--"static", meaning no Javascript code is involved. In this case, neither are there any build processes nor templates nor frameworks. There are only HTML files, a styles.css file, and a handful of images.

That said, even a simple static site provides plenty of complexity for exercising collaboration. For instance, suppose two teammates each add a menu link to index.html. One adds a link to "help", and the other adds a link to "faq". When they attempt to push their changes, not only will a merge be required, but a merge conflict will almost certainly result, and need resolving.

The starter repo has these files:

.
├── about.html
├── bin
│   ├── append-aliases-to-profile.sh
│   └── git-aliases.sh
├── faq.html
├── help.html
├── images
│   ├── earth.jpg
│   ├── mars.jpg
│   ├── mercury.jpg
│   ├── solar-system-subway-map-ulysse-carion.png
│   ├── sun-coronal-mass-ejection.jpg
│   └── venus.jpg
├── index.html
├── map.html
├── .gitignore
└── styles.css

• The five HTML files each correspond to a page on the website: index.html (the home page), about.html, faq.html, help.html, and map.html.
• The images/ directory contains images that you'll later reference with <img> tags.
• The styles.css file isn't used yet; you'll be directed to add it to index.html, something like this, to change the look of the website.
• The bin directory is not part of the website, but contains useful git command shortcuts we'll use during the course.
• .gitignore is also not part of the website (and not visible unless you use ls -a).