Have questions?
Hey! Before Workshop A, there are four things you need to do. It shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes. If you have any questions or something seems off, ping me, Ben Borgers, on Slack and we can get it sorted out. (Also, if you have any questions at all throughout this, send me a message!)
First — what are Git and GitHub?
The world today builds software using a tool called Git. It's a tool for version control, which means that it manages different versions of your code. It maintains the full history of your changes, and you can go back to prior versions at any time. You can also "branch" the folder of code and build your changes while a teammate makes their own changes, without you working on top of one another, and then eventually "merge" each of your branches back into the main codebase.
There's a subtle difference between Git and GitHub: Git is the version control tool, and by itself keeps track of your history on your computer. But if you want to work with other people, GitHub allows you to "push" your local changes to a central spot, so your team can access your changes. So the history of the codebase is on your computer (managed by Git), where you can work with it, and in the cloud (on GitHub's servers) so that everyone has the same changes.
You can sign up for an account at github.com, if you don't already have one! (You don't need a separate account for JumboCode.)
Git, the version control software we talked about above, comes somewhat preinstalled on Macs. You'll want to run this command to see if you've already got it installed:
git --version
If not, on macOS you can run this command to install Git (and other stuff):
xcode-select --install
If you're using Windows, you can follow these instructions on how to install Git.
Node.js lets you run JavaScript outside of the browser. JavaScript runs websites in your web browser, but with Node.js, we can also execute JavaScript from a terminal — similar to C++.
You can install Node.js from their official website — the LTS version (Long Term Support, aka "not bleeding edge but it will stay working for a while") is perfect.
Node.js automatically comes with npm (Node Package Manager), which allows you to install "packages" — bundles of code that other people have published that you can use instead of writing it yourself. (For example, a package might allow you to generate QR codes, or to communicate with a database. C++ has packages as well: when you import <iostream> you're importing code from a package that comes preinstalled with C++.)
VS Code is a code editor; if you haven't used VS Code to edit your code before you may have used Atom or PyCharm, which do similar things.
I like VS Code because it's great for JavaScript projects. If you have a strong opinion about your code editor you can absolutely bring your own; if you do not, VS Code is my recommendation.
You can download the VS Code app from their website. Again, just downloading the app and being able to open it is perfect.
Let me know if there's anything that you were confused by and I'll update the guide for future people!
I'm excited to see you soon!
Have questions?